How Can Restaurants Stay Profitable During Slow Seasons
I Almost Watched My Favourite Restaurant Die Last Winter
Ugh, February. Seriously, screw February. It’s not just that it’s cold and miserable – though it definitely is – but that’s when I almost lost the place I’ve been eating at since I was broke and in college.
Have you ever walked into a restaurant and immediately felt awkward because it’s so empty? That was Rosario’s last February. I’m talking about three tables occupied. On a Friday. Night.
I’ve been going there for like… eight years? Maybe nine? I started going there when I could barely afford the pasta special, and now I bring dates there because I know Rosario will hook me up with the good wine. But that night, man. Rosario was behind the bar doing that thing where you pretend to be busy cleaning the same glass for five minutes because you don’t know what else to do with yourself.
His hands were shaking. Just slightly, but I noticed. When I asked how business was going, he gave me this look… you know the look. Like when your dog is sick and you ask the vet “is he gonna be okay?” and they pause just a second too long before answering.
“Eh, you know how it is,” he said. But his voice cracked a little.
I genuinely thought that might be my last meal there. Had this whole dramatic moment thinking about all the good times, the terrible first dates, the celebration dinners after I got promoted…
Plot twist: Rosario’s is busy as hell again. Like, annoyingly busy – I can’t just walk in anymore. But how did he turn it around? Nobody teaches you this stuff. He figured it out by basically throwing everything at the wall and seeing what stuck.
And if you’re running a restaurant right now and staying profitable during slow seasons feels like trying to solve a puzzle while blindfolded, maybe some of Rosario’s trial-and-error experiments can help you too. Because honestly, some of his ideas were borderline genius.
Your Menu is Lying to Your Face
So this is gonna make me sound like an idiot, but I had no clue restaurants could lose money on their most popular dishes until my friend Carmen broke it down for me.
Carmen owns this sandwich shop I go to probably twice a week (don’t judge me, their turkey club is incredible). Always packed at lunch, line out the door, everyone ordering her “world famous” Cuban sandwich. I just assumed she was making bank off that thing.
Wrong. So wrong.
Turns out Carmen was making like… 90 cents on each Cuban. Maybe less. The pork shoulder she had to slow-cook for hours, the ham, those fancy pickles she orders from some place in Miami, the bread she gets delivered from this bakery across town, plus the time it takes to press each sandwich individually…
Meanwhile, that turkey club I’m obsessed with? She’s making four bucks profit. Same amount of work, way better margins.
When she told me this over drinks (yes, we’re friends now because I tip well and don’t complain), she looked genuinely pissed at herself. Like, properly angry.
“I’ve been promoting the wrong goddamn sandwich for two years,” she said. Then she ordered another beer and started sketching out a new menu on a napkin.
Here’s what she changed:
- Actually sat down and calculated what each dish costs to make (revolutionary concept, apparently)
- Moved the profitable stuff to the prime real estate spots on the menu
- Created these combo deals that pair low-margin items with drinks that cost her pennies to make
- Got rid of three sandwiches that were massive pains in the ass and barely broke even
You know what’s funny? Her customers barely noticed the changes. People still come in asking for “that amazing sandwich place,” they just order different stuff now. But Carmen’s checking account? Definitely noticed.
What Carmen Was Doing Wrong | What Actually Works |
Pushing whatever people ordered most | Pushing what makes actual money |
Menu with 47 different options | Streamlined to 31 things she can execute well |
Food costs fluctuating wildly | Steady 28% food cost (she’s proud of this number) |
Panic attacks on slow Tuesdays | Actually gets excited when people order now |
Look, I’m not saying this approach works for everyone. Carmen’s pretty Type A and obsessive about numbers. But damn, it worked for her.
What the Hell Do You Do With an Empty Restaurant at 3 PM?
This story’s gonna sound made up, but I swear it’s true.
My neighbor Sarah – and when I say neighbor, I mean we share a fence and I can hear her dog barking at 6 AM – she owns this breakfast place about ten minutes from our house. Amazing food, packed every morning, but come 2 PM? Absolute wasteland.
Now, Sarah is… how do I put this nicely… she doesn’t accept defeat well. Like, at all. The woman once spent three hours trying to hang a picture frame because she refused to admit she needed a level.
So when her restaurant was sitting empty for 18 hours a day while she’s still paying full rent, utilities, insurance… She got that same stubborn look she gets when she’s fighting with home improvement projects.
“I’m paying for this space 24/7,” she told me over the fence one day. “But I’m only making money for like four hours. That’s stupid.”
The first thing she tried was cooking classes. Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, twenty bucks a head, learn to make her signature stuffed French toast. I’m thinking, who the hell wants to learn to make French toast on a Tuesday afternoon?
Sold out. First week.
Then she starts renting the space to book clubs in the evenings. Then these “work remotely from here” deals for freelancers and work-from-home people – fifteen bucks gets you unlimited coffee and WiFi all afternoon. Then she realizes she can do catering orders using the exact same kitchen she’s already paying to keep running.
Six months later, Sarah’s making more on Wednesday afternoons than most places make on their busiest Saturday nights.
Things she learned (mostly by screwing up first):
- Your overhead costs don’t give a shit if customers show up or not
- People will pay decent money for experiences, especially if there’s food involved
- Catering has insane profit margins compared to regular service
- Empty time isn’t dead time, it’s just untapped potential
Not everything worked, by the way. She tried wine tasting nights – total disaster. Yoga classes in the dining room – super weird and awkward. But the stuff that clicked? Game changer.
How to Cut Costs Without Destroying Your Soul
Every restaurant owner’s go-to move when money gets tight: panic and cut everything. Staff, supplies, quality, marketing budget. Just start swinging the axe and hope you don’t hit anything vital.
I watched this exact disaster play out at a pizza place I used to love. When business slowed down, the owner started buying the cheapest cheese he could find. Laid off Maria, who was honestly the best server they had. Stopped doing the deep cleans. Cut his tiny marketing budget down to zero because “people know we’re here.”
You can guess how this story ends. Pizza started tasting like cardboard. Service went to hell because the remaining staff was overwhelmed and undertrained. And since nobody knew they were still open – no marketing, remember – fewer people came in, which made everything worse.
Nine months later: closed permanently. It still makes me sad when I drive by that empty storefront.
But then there’s Tony’s Deli, which was in almost the exact same situation but handled it completely differently.
Tony’s was bleeding money during the slow season, bills piling up, that familiar restaurant owner panic setting in. But instead of cutting randomly like he was playing jenga drunk, Tony got methodical about it.
He kept his core team – the people who actually knew what they were doing – but cross-trained everyone on multiple jobs. His best server, Jessica, learned food prep. His morning cook learned to handle the register and do basic inventory. Instead of laying people off completely, he reduced everyone’s hours but kept the team intact.
For suppliers, he didn’t switch to cheaper crap. He called up his existing vendors and negotiated payment terms. Turns out, they’d rather wait 60 days for their money than lose a steady customer entirely.
The ballsy move though? Tony actually increased his marketing spend during the slowest months. Not expensive newspaper ads or anything, but email campaigns, social media posts, getting involved in community events. His reasoning: “If I’m already slow, I can’t afford to be invisible too.”
Smart man. The National Restaurant Association backs this up too – places that make strategic cuts instead of desperate cuts are way more likely to come back stronger.
Your Customers Have the Memory of a Drunk Goldfish
Real talk: people forget about your restaurant way faster than you think they do.
I have maybe six restaurants I genuinely love and would recommend to anyone. But if I haven’t been somewhere in three weeks, it literally doesn’t exist in my brain when I’m trying to decide where to eat tonight. It’s not personal or intentional – I just have the attention span of… well, a drunk goldfish.
Rosario made this exact mistake during his scary February period. Figured he’d save some money by cutting back on marketing and social media. Just keep his head down, make good food, wait for people to remember his place existed.
Spoiler: they didn’t.
What finally saved his ass was getting back on people’s radar, but not in a desperate “please come eat here” way. More like… making people actually give a shit about his restaurant as more than just a place to get food.
He started sending these email newsletters that read more like letters to friends than marketing crap. Stories about his grandmother’s recipes, pictures from his last trip back to Italy, updates about some weird seasonal ingredient he was excited to cook with. Zero hard sell, just Rosario being his passionate, slightly neurotic self.
People loved it. Started forwarding his emails to their friends. Coming in specifically to ask about stories he’d mentioned. Bringing their parents to meet “that Italian guy who sends the interesting emails.”
What worked for him:
- Email newsletters that felt like catching up with a friend
- Instagram posts showing his actual personality, not just food porn
- Loyalty program that rewarded people for visiting during the dead times
- Text message deals that felt exclusive rather than desperate
Data nerds found that restaurants maintaining customer connections during slow periods had 31% better retention rates. But honestly, you don’t need to study to know this makes sense – stay in people’s heads, stay in business.
The Secret Weapon Nobody Talks About
Here’s what separates restaurants that survive slow seasons from the ones that don’t: they’re actually part of their community.
COVID taught me this lesson in the harshest way possible. When everything shut down, the places that survived weren’t necessarily the ones with the best food or the smartest owners. They were the ones that had spent years being genuinely involved in their neighborhoods.
My buddy Jake runs this sports bar that should’ve been completely screwed during lockdowns. No sports on TV, no crowds of drunk people yelling at screens, no reason for anyone to order wings for delivery from a sports bar when they could get them from anywhere.
But Jake had been sponsoring kids’ soccer teams for like five years. Hosting charity fundraisers. Catering school events even when it was barely profitable. When the world went to hell, all those connections came through for him.
Those soccer parents started ordering family dinner packages every Friday night. Local businesses hired him to cater their weird outdoor socially-distanced meetings. People actually organized to support Jake because he’d been supporting them long before he needed anything back.
This isn’t charity or pity purchases. It’s genuine relationship building:
- Partner with local gyms for healthy meal programs
- Sponsor community events in exchange for catering opportunities
- Work with hotels for room service contracts
- Set up corporate lunch programs with nearby offices
When you become part of the community fabric instead of just another business, people don’t see you as “a restaurant.” You become “our place.” And people will bend over backwards to keep “their place” alive.
The Rest of Rosario's Story (Spoiler: It Gets Good)
Remember Rosario from the beginning, shaking behind his bar in that empty restaurant? I went back there three days ago. Wednesday night, 6:30 PM. I had to wait 25 minutes for a table. On a Wednesday.
When he saw me in line, he came over with a glass of the good wine and this huge grin.
“You remember when this place was like a morgue?” he says. “That was the best thing that happened to me in ten years.”
Turns out, being forced to get creative during those slow months taught him more about his business than the previous five years combined. He figured out his simple aglio e olio pasta had ridiculous profit margins. Started doing monthly wine dinners that people actually planned their calendars around. Kept his good staff happy with flexible scheduling instead of layoffs. Build actual relationships with customers through those personal emails. Landed catering contracts with three hotels downtown.
But the biggest shift was mental. He stopped seeing slow seasons as punishment and started treating them like laboratory time.
“I used to dread February,” he told me, refilling my wine without me asking. “Now I use February to figure out what I want to try in March.”
If your restaurant is struggling through slow times right now, just pick one thing from this list and try it next week. Doesn’t have to be perfect, doesn’t have to work immediately. But doing something is infinitely better than doing nothing and hoping it gets better on its own.
The places that make it long-term aren’t the ones that never have slow periods – they’re the ones that use slow periods to build something stronger. And once you figure that out, those quiet Tuesday nights start feeling less like death watch and more like prep time for your comeback.
