A Table for 5,600 Please

That’s a Lot of Tapas
Mesón Sabika, a tapas restaurant in Naperville, IL, gives tables of up to four people a 40% food discount if at least one of the four people at the table works in one of the two local school districts. Between Naperville school district 203 and Aurora school district 204, that’s 5,600 employees who qualify for the discount.

A Brilliant Discount
The discount for school district employees at Mesón Sabika is brilliant for four reasons:
  1. It’s a significant discount. 40% off of food is a great reason to go to a restaurant. It’s hard to go anywhere else if you can get 40% at a great restaurant. It’s not a rinky-dink 10% discount. 40% off is a great deal no matter how you look at it.

  2. It’s a great form of word of mouth marketing. One person who works in the district can bring up to three non-district employees and get the discount for the whole table. Thus, the discount encourages district employees to bring their friends and families to the restaurant. The discount, itself, is a great form of word of mouth marketing – that’s how I heard about it.

  3. It’s still profitable for the restaurant. The discount does not include beverages – the most profitable item on a restaurant’s menu. So, if a table of four orders a few drinks, the restaurant makes out just fine even after discounting its food by 40%.
A Great Way to Get Involved with the Community
Kudos to Mesón Sabika for supporting its local community by offering this discount. It’s a win-win situation for the restaurant. It does good by supporting the local teachers, and it gains great feelings of good-will and publicity by doing so.

Add This to Your To-Do List
Are there ways in which you can engage the local community by offering discounts to a specific demographic of people? Look for ways to offer discounts that are significant enough to make people notice them, encourage more than one person to use the discount, and still leave you profitable. It’s hard to do all three, but doing so will certainly lead to increased business.

There’s never a lack of ideas.

Comments

  1. AnonymousApril 26, 2009

    It would be great if more places did this, perhaps the ones in my school district area.

    I definitely enjoy the teacher discounts provided by Ann Taylor Loft and JCrew.

    ReplyDelete

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