Restaurants gear up for the Valentine's Day dinner crowd
DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) – Valentine's Day is an all-hands-on-deck kind of night at Bob's Steak and Chop House in Dallas.
"It's a Tuesday night where, even if you don't usually work Tuesdays, you're working tonight," said Bob's Steak and Chop House founder Bob Sambol. "Everybody knows this is a chance to make money. This is it. This is showtime."
It is the second biggest restaurant day of the year, next to Mother's Day, according to the National Restaurant Association. Sambol said it's the perfect scenario when it falls on a Tuesday.
"We have the weekend before, where a lot of people who can't go out during the week come and have dinner. We were busy last night. We're going to be busy tomorrow, and then you have tonight, over 500 reservations of people that want to come out on Valentine's Day," he said.
But making sure customers are getting the night out they expect can be tricky for restaurants today. The industry is still suffering from labor shortages that began during COVID, soaring food costs, and inflation. The Texas Restaurant Association said many companies are adapting accordingly.
"So it might be more of a pre-fixed menu or a limited menu to help with some of the inflationary items so that you're staying focused on items that may be less expensive," said Tony Abruscato, Chief Marketing Officer of the Texas Restaurant Association
Sambol said his approach is to increase salaries.
"We look at what we pay people on a quarterly basis to make sure we're competitive, to make sure they're not going to leave us for $1 or $2 an hour. It's just not worth it," he said.
The Texas Restaurant Association said full-service prices are up about 8% from last year, but that increase in revenue doesn't necessarily translate into profits. They said nights like Valentine's Day help.
"But we hope that the correlation between the two will be there and help our restaurants continue to thrive as we all rebound back from the COVID era," Abruscato said.