Baltimore Restaurant Week Is Upon Us

Its that time again. It comes around twice a year. Servers love to hate it, and all the Yelpers just love it. Its Baltimore Restaurant Week. Get ready to explain where the bathroom is twice as much, and answer whether or not free parking exists. But most importantly, get ready to put on a show for dozens of potential new return customers.

Baltimore Restaurant Week runs from July 28 – August 6 this year and features close to one hundred participating restaurants. Each restaurant offers a two-course brunch or lunch menu ranging from $12 to $20, and a three-course dinner menu ranging from $20-$35.

Something to think about…

If you want to be certain you’ll have a successful Restaurant Week and don’t get caught in the weeds:

1) Prepare — Prepare to deal with a lot of reviews. Something about Restaurant Week encourages endless Instagram photos, Snapchats, Facebook posts, and the dreaded Yelp review. Prepare to remove unfounded comments and interact with both good and bad reviews to show customers you care. We’ve talked about this before, it’s important to make sure your customer sees you interacting.

2) Get in their faces — Get in their face on social media. Whether you’re participating in Baltimore Restaurant Week or not, you want the new and prospective customers to see what you’re offering. Take advantage of the attention spent on local restaurants and create your own specials or special menu to help potential guests make your restaurant one of their stops. Most importantly, use all of those frustrating photos and direct guests to use a hashtag specific to your restaurant.

So encourage the foodies, bloggers, and Yelpers. Enjoy the new customers and take advantage of the added traffic. This time of year can be slow for many area restaurants and Baltimore Restaurant Week can be a huge boost. Take advantage of the free advertising and make the most of your social media while making sure you protect your reputation.