The Olive Garden recently made its buy one entree, take home an entree for only $5 offer a regular part of its menu. It has successfully experimented with a buy one get one free version of this same dinner offer in the past. Offering a buy one take one home for free offer in your restaurant can be beneficial, while increasing sales and delivering more value. Here are some considerations for using a buy one take one home dinner program at your restaurant.

Customers See More Value

When customers see that your restaurant is offering a BOGO dinner program, they become excited because of how valuable they perceive the offer. A meal becomes 50% more affordable if you have another one to eat at home for the same price. This increases the traffic into your restaurant, especially with budget-savvy customers.

Low Cost Entrees

The key to having a successful buy one take one home dinner program is to keep the food and packaging cost of the entrees relatively low. In the case of Olive Garden, nearly all of the take home entrees only consist of pasta, sauce, and cheese. The customer orders an entree sized portion of spaghetti and meatballs and takes home fettuccine alfredo without any meat. Since the Olive Garden uses so much pasta anyway, it doesn’t cost very much to provide customers with an extra portion.

Conditions

It is important to clearly state conditions for any deal you offer to customers on the menu and any related advertisements. This can include that the deal isn’t available on holidays, during lunch hours, or in combination with other offers, such as kids eat free. These conditions are important to keep the deal profitable. You ideally want the deal to lead to more customers eating at your restaurant, many of whom might have chosen to stay at home instead of eating out.

Something to Advertise

A buy one take home dinner program is an attractive deal worth advertising. If your restaurant struggles to create advertising content or social media posts, this is an easy way to add more content. Customers want to know when and where they can go to enjoy such a delicious meal at a great savings.

Packaging

To send customers home with a dinner, you need the right takeout packaging. Olive Garden pre-packages their take home dinners in microwavable packages. However, the best takeout packaging for your needs will vary based on what your take home meals consist of and if the meals need to be heated.

Fortunately, PacknWood has the takeout packaging you need to successfully run a buy one take one home program at your restaurant. To learn more about our line of green food packaging, email us at contact@packnwood.com to request a catalog.