Sample result
Event Campaign Builder for Restaurants
The owner asked this:«I want to fill Thursday nights with some kind of event. I have a 60-seat room and a team of 24.»
① The event and its seat table
Origin dinner: one Colombian region a month, first Thursday, 7:30 p.m. Two formats were ruled out because none of your reasons for coming asks for them: live music night, which raises fixed cost without raising the seat, and after-office, because your core guest has lunch on weekdays and does not dine at 6. Lunch from Tuesday to Friday and Sunday midday already fill on their own; Thursday night is slow, and that is where an event adds instead of cannibalising.
The room seats 60 on the drawing and serves 45 covers comfortably with a four-course menu: six tables of six and three of three, run by the 9 operations people this location keeps that night —the other 9 hold the second location— plus 2 extra hands for setup. The cap was set at 45 seats, before the poster.
| Item | Seats | Price per person | Cost per cover | Margin in money |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Origin menu, 4 courses | 38 | 68,000 COP | 21,100 COP | 1,782,200 COP |
| 3-glass pairing, optional (4 in 10 take it, assumed) | 15 | 26,000 COP | 8,300 COP | 265,500 COP |
| Welcome courtesy, corozo lemonade | 38 | 0 COP | 1,800 COP | −68,400 COP |
| Night total at 38 seats | 38 | — | — | 1,979,300 COP |
Price per person sits inside the menu range (28,000 to 72,000 COP) and menu food cost lands at 31%, under the house ceiling of 32%. Setup payroll is budgeted apart and never charged to the plate: 2 assistants for 6 hours (420,000 COP), kitchen and dishwashing overtime (260,000 COP), rented tableware and regional décor (180,000 COP) and printing the night's menu (120,000 COP). That is 980,000 COP, all assumed until you check them against the real payroll.
Break-even: 22 seats of 45. Each seat leaves 45,100 COP of contribution margin once the courtesy is paid, so from seat 23 on the night starts to earn. At 38 seats the profit lands at 999,300 COP and the event seat bills close to 78,300 COP against the 48,000 COP average check: 30,300 COP more per chair, in the slot that is dead today. Illustrative figures, built from the data you gave.
② Lead time against effort
The matrix does not decide by taste but by two things you can measure: how much lead time the request brings and how many hands the setup asks for.
| Light setup (the night brigade is enough) | Heavy setup (asks for extra hands) | |
|---|---|---|
| 6 to 8 weeks out | Onto the fixed calendar. The first-Thursday origin dinner: 6 weeks of advance selling, a 45-seat cap and the month's region decided the Monday before the run starts. It is the only one that repeats on its own. | Once a year, 8 weeks out. Medellín's strong commercial date —August, the Feria de las Flores— is designed 8 weeks ahead, quoted with a 50% deposit, and never staged in a month that already carries two origin dinners. |
| Under 2 weeks | Quoted in under 4 hours. A private booking of 12 to 24 people on the short menu, in the room or dispatched through your own delivery: the quote goes out the same day and the deposit is collected within 48 hours of acceptance. Whoever replies first quotes against nobody. | Say no, or charge for it. A 40-person private with separate setup at 10 days' notice: offer another date, or take it with an 18% rush-setup surcharge and a 70% deposit. Never on Tuesday-to-Friday lunch, never on Sunday midday. |
The judgement behind the matrix, declared and arguable: three well-priced Thursdays beat ten celebrations that leave the kitchen tired and the margin where it was. The concession: if the room were empty at lunch too, the bottom-right quadrant would read differently and that 18% surcharge would be a fill-the-room discount.
③ The quote, ready to send
It goes out without editing a line: only the name, the date and the number of seats are typed in.
| Section | What the quote says |
|---|---|
| Includes | The 4-course origin menu per person at 68,000 COP, welcome courtesy, room setup for up to 45 covers, the night's menu printed and full service for 4 hours from the start time. |
| Does not include | Drinks outside the 3-glass pairing (26,000 COP per person), dessert brought from outside (bakery corkage, 6,000 COP per person, assumed), extra décor or transport. The bar serves for 3 hours counted from the first toast, and it is written here so nobody discovers it at 11 at night. |
| Deposit | 50% within 48 hours of acceptance, through the same channel the quote came from. A date is not held with a word: it is held with the deposit. The balance is paid before the first course. |
| Validity | 15 calendar days from the send date. After day 15 it is requoted against the month's costing sheet, because the price of trout waits for nobody. |
| Changes | The seat count is confirmed 72 hours out and billed on that number, even if fewer people arrive. One date change, with 10 days' notice, at no cost; the second one comes out of the deposit. |
Closing script, for whoever asked for the quote and has not paid yet (read as written):
Doña Marcela, I am holding the 18 seats for Thursday the 4th until noon tomorrow. With the 50% —612,000 COP— the date goes in your name and I send you the night's menu to pass around your guests. Shall I send the account number, or bring the card reader to your table on Saturday?
The full example has 2 more part(s): you see them inside the library, with your account.