As you can well imagine, Valentine's Day (week) is one of the better ones in the restaurant business. For establishments like ours, New Year's Eve is the number one day for sales, Valentine's is second and Mother's Day is third. While our culture has not figured out a way to move New Year's Eve to a different day, it does seem as though many people have started to migrate Valentine's to different days. When Valentine's falls on a Saturday, it can be as big as New Year's. When it falls in the middle of the week - it seems like nowadays - it gets spread out to the weekend before or after and the day itself. Real romantics still go out on the actual Valentine's Day. When the calendar falls like this, we have to get ready for three Valentine's days, Saturday and Thursday. The day before and after is popular for fellow hospitality employees that have to work on the holiday.
One of the really nice advantages that we have for Valentines Day is the amount of space. We set up our banquet room in nice comfortable four tops. My preference for a romantic restaurant meal is for 2 people to sit at a four-top with both of us facing out to the crowd and the action. There will be no "deuces" in our dining room. With as much room as we have when we add in the banquet room, we can promise you that you will not be cramped and the noise won't crowd out the sweet nothings that you are whispering. Also, one other really nice thing about our layout is we do not have one aisle table.
As far as operations go, it is one of my favorite nights of the year to work. Everyone seems to be in such a happy, casual and loving mood. The kitchen likes it also because coordinating orders for two people is so much easier than sending out larger groups. We have a whole collection of love songs that are playing in the background and we decorate with an assortment of nice floral arrangements.
Valentines is probably the biggest splurge day of the year in our business. A dozen roses or a lobster, what's your preference? For the splurgers in our crowd besides our regular menu of great steaks and seafood, we also have lobster, filet, leg of lamb, decadent desserts and giant chocolate covered strawberries.
Every couple seems to have a habit on Valentines Day. I take mine out for lobster after we are done working, and it is not here. Let us become your Valentine habit.
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