While Americans wait for a little financial love from Uncle Sam, Patina Restaurant Group is offering guests a real stimulus in the form of promotions that give meaningful value and help fuel sales during tough times.
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Rock Center Café’s Skate-A-Date promotion gives guests much needed value in tough times.
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In response to the recent economic downturn, the restaurant group — with fine dining venues spread across both American coastlines, including The Sea Grill in New York City and Café Pinot in Los Angeles — issued a 25 percent markdown on all wines by the bottle in the majority of its venues with its “Wines for the Wise” promotion. The special wine pricing is available to anyone ordering a meal. The deal runs through March 31 on the East Coast and ran through February 28 on the West Coast, including all reds, whites, rosés and sparkling wines.
In a few of the venues, Patina Restaurant Group takes the discount one step further to offer additional package dinner deals for patrons.
The “Skate-A-Date” promotion at the group’s Rock Center Café in New York City’s Rockefeller Center adds a cost-effective package dinner option that is a huge hit with couples looking for a fun evening out. For $80, two diners receive a two-course dinner at the café’s rink-side restaurant and VIP skating tickets to twirl on the ice after supper.
“Sometimes Fridays and Saturdays it can get busy, and the VIP ticket allows our guests to skip the line,” says Steve Low, director for Rock Center Café. The promotion does not include skate rentals, but it does cover admission, which normally totals $14. Coupled with the 25 percent mark-down on all bottles, this promotion, which runs through April 18, keeps Rock Center Café a top-of-mind choice for couples, despite the economic crisis.
“The reason we do it January through April is these months are typically a lot softer,” Low explains. “Once the Christmas tree comes down, business decreases dramatically, and we go from 800 dinners to 100 dinners weekdays and 200 on weekends. Right now, about 20 percent of our guests are ordering this package, so it’s great for us.”