Every restaurateur knows the feeling: empty tables on a Tuesday afternoon, followed by a packed house with a queue out the door on Saturday night.
What if you could smooth out those peaks and troughs, ensuring every service is as profitable as possible? That's where yield management comes in.
It might sound like a complex theory, but it’s a practical approach that helps you make the most of your most valuable asset: your tables. This guide will walk you through exactly what it is, how it benefits you, and how you can start using it today.
In simple terms, what is yield management?
Think of it as the art of selling the right table, to the right customer, at the right time, and for the right price. It’s about being strategic to maximise the revenue you can generate from a fixed number of seats.
Instead of having one price and one approach for every day of the week, you adapt.
You get smart about what the elements of yield management are: optimising prices, managing table availability, and understanding customer demand to ensure you’re not leaving money on the table—literally. It’s a core part of yield management in restaurants and a key to long-term profitability.
Adopting a yield management approach isn't just about boosting your bottom line. The advantages of yield management are clear, with direct benefits for your operations and your guests:
Ready to get started? Here are four proven yield management strategies, along with practical yield management examples, that you can apply in your restaurant immediately.
This means offering different prices at different times. The goal is to use smart pricing to drive traffic when you're quiet and maximise profit when you're busy.
This tactic focuses on managing how long guests stay at their table, allowing you to serve more covers in a single service.
This is the art of analysing your menu to see which dishes are popular and which are most profitable. You can then redesign your menu to encourage customers to order the items that make you the most money.
This means using your past booking and sales data to anticipate future customer traffic. Knowing when you'll be busy or quiet helps you plan everything from staff rotas to promotions.
You don't need to be a data scientist to implement these strategies. The good news is that a powerful and easy-to-use tool can do the heavy lifting for you and help your restaurant.
TheFork Manager acts as your intuitive yield management system, giving you all the features you need in one place.
Feeling inspired but not sure where to begin? Don't overcomplicate it. Follow these three steps.
Not exactly, but they are closely related. Think of revenue management as the overall strategy for maximising a business's income.
Yield management is a key tactic within that strategy, focused specifically on getting the most revenue from a fixed, perishable resource—like your restaurant seats. We’ve explained the difference between revenue management and yield management here, but the goal is the same: to make your restaurant more profitable.
Absolutely. In fact, it can be even more important for a small restaurant. When you have fewer tables, making sure every single one is generating as much revenue as possible is crucial to your success.
This is a common worry, but it’s rarely an issue when done correctly. Most strategies, like "Early Bird" discounts, are seen as a reward for dining at a quieter time. The key is to be transparent. You aren't punishing people for booking at peak times; you are rewarding those who help you fill your restaurant during off-peak hours.
You can see an impact very quickly. As soon as you launch a special offer for a quiet midweek service, you could see an increase in bookings for that service within the first week. The key is to be consistent and use the data to keep refining your approach.