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The Restaurant’s Guide to St. Patrick’s Day Promotions
Lenny DeFranco
5 min read
Mar 3, 2025
Lenny DeFranco
5 min read
Mar 3, 2025
These days, St. Patrick’s Day has become an excuse for a raucous celebration of drinking and merrymaking, especially in cities with a large population of Irish descent. In fact, more countries celebrate the green holiday than any other national festival — everyone is a little Irish on March 17th, after all.
Whether the holiday falls on a weekday or weekend, it’s the perfect opportunity to boost sales with a special restaurant promotion or event. Local St. Patrick’s Day parades and festivals help increase walk-in traffic, too.
Such fanfare makes this holiday a great opportunity to attract new and repeat diners ready to channel their inner leprechaun — whether at home or on-premise.
Read on to discover unique St. Patrick’s Day restaurant ideas to help you drive business this year.
We’ve come up with ideas that are a bit different from your standard St. Paddy’s event while sticking wholeheartedly to the Irish theme. The aim is to encourage advanced bookings and online orders, which will help you collect customer information and build new relationships.
The Guinness harp is as much of a symbol of St. Patrick’s Day as the shamrock, so it warrants a spot on your St. Patty’s Day menu. Although this famous export is produced in 50 countries and available in more than 150 worldwide, Guinness is by no means Ireland’s only brew.
There are plenty of alternatives that can provide a fresh take on an old twist. To promote your events, catering or delivery packages, debut a unique alternative like Murphy’s Stout, Smithwick’s Irish Ale or Harp Lager. (P.S. A little green food coloring goes a long way when pouring beer and drawing a crowd!)
Offering a promotion on Irish whiskey is another unique draw. For an upmarket event, why not bring in an expert to host a whiskey tasting? Or you could offer it as an add-on to any online order made on St. Patrick’s Day.
A staple of Dublin’s rowdiest pubs, you can’t beat a fresh oyster dropped into a shot of sharp and tangy Bloody Mary cocktail. This is a great upsell on a round of drinks, offering an alternative many people won’t have seen before.
Although it is now predominantly seen as a drinking festival, Saint Patrick’s Day was originally about feasting. It’s the perfect excuse to offer a special menu celebrating Irish cuisine for guests who choose to dine with you or those who choose to eat at home.
Irish cooking revolves around traditional hearty fare, using locally abundant ingredients like lamb, beef, shellfish, milk, butter, local veggies, and of course, potatoes.
If you don’t feel a full Irish menu is appropriate for your venue, let the cuisine inspire an “Irish twist” on some of your best dishes. For example, switch your freshly made baguette for soda bread, rework your charcuterie appetizer into an Irish starter platter or add a side of potato cakes to your signature meaty main.
A breakfast or brunch promotion is a great way to fill tables before your peak dinner or lunch rush. A traditional Irish breakfast is similar to a full English: A fried feast of black bacon, sausages, blood pudding, beans, potato cakes, mushrooms and tomatoes, served with slices of soda bread.
In keeping with the St. Patty’s Day theme, brew up Irish coffees sweetened with Jameson whiskey and whipped cream for a mid-morning pick-me-up.
If a more modern approach is appropriate for your restaurant, take inspiration from the top Irish chefs, like JP McMahon, Claire Smyth and Anna Haugh, who are exporting the cuisine to the world. Modern Irish food is a celebration of the excellent ingredients grown in the island’s fertile soil. Create a modern Irish menu highlighting the best local produce in your area.
Irish pubs are famous for their lively atmosphere and nightly live music. With an increased appetite for in-person events, consider hiring a local Irish band to provide entertainment for your guests. Promote the event on your social media channels or send invitations with food deliveries during the lead-up to engage those guests who usually stay home.
See who has the “luck of the Irish” with a lottery game or raffle. Let guests buy tickets for the chance to win prizes and ask local businesses to sponsor the contest or donate prizes. You’ll both benefit from the joint marketing efforts, and it’s an easy way to boost your revenue with a little extra gravy.
St. Patrick’s Day celebrations can be more than an in-person revelry. Engage the guests who prefer to celebrate at home with themed takeaway packages. When you’re creating St. Paddy’s Day menus for your venue, double down on unique menu items that guests want to eat (e.g., go heavy on the mashed potatoes).
Your options are endless, and even better? Irish food is incredibly hearty, so it will hold up well in takeaway containers!
Come up with creative package names like “Luck of the Irish,” “Taste the Pot of Gold” or even simply “St. Patrick’s Day Specials.” Adding do-it-yourself meal kits or beverage bundles to your takeout menu can help you boost profits on holidays when guests don’t want to cook.
To celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, you don’t need to reinvent the Shepherd’s Pie to attract more customers. Take a peek at what some of our clients are doing for their St. Patrick’s Day ceiliúradh (celebrations).
The Pigs Ear debuts a “pie and a pint” menu with live music and drink specials that would make any leprechaun want to party into the wee hours.
By providing a comprehensive package, Kirkwood Bar draws in crowds with four call drink tickets (can you say “sláinte”?) and a breakfast buffet that includes a build-your-own corned beef sandwich.
Park Avenue Tavern serves up an Irish-style extended weekend menu and live music on Monday evening to keep guests celebrating all day long.
Offering upgrades during the online reservation process can increase your revenue in advance. This simple addition allows guests to customize their experience while earning you prepaid revenue and more secure bookings.
Here are some St. Patrick’s Day restaurant ideas to offer as upgrades in the booking process:
The fun and colorful nature of St. Patrick’s Day makes it a prime candidate for an Instagram or Facebook campaign. Here, you can be playful with guests and show them, with vibrant imagery and snappy captions, how much fun they could have at your restaurant or when they order a takeaway package for home.
You can easily add a ‘Book a Table’ or ‘Order Food’ button to your social media profiles to drive traffic directly to your booking widget or online ordering page. Making the most of your social media traffic helps you track the campaign results and eliminate commissions and fees.
Use the customer data you already have to segment your audience and personalize your emails or SMS text campaigns based on interest and dining history. Improve your open and conversion rates by only sending your St. Paddy’s Day promotion emails and texts to the most likely interested — like those who frequently order cocktails, loyal customers who attend similar events, past online orderers, or your best reviewers.
Effective email and text marketing are tailored to your unique guest preferences. When you use text and email marketing solutions that integrate with a restaurant CRM, you create hyper-targeted campaigns that boost retention and drive more revenue per cover.
Even if your restaurant or bar has no specific connection to the Emerald Isle, St. Patrick’s Day is a giant opportunity to attract new customers and improve loyalty using guest data in a targeted way.
Using an integrated CRM, marketing and operations platform like SevenRooms allows you to directly manage bookings and online orders, collect customer data and send personalized marketing promotions to improve the customer experience and loyalty. To learn more about how SevenRooms can help you capitalize on high-traffic holidays and events, book a demo today.
Offer a beverage promotion to entice your guests to try something new. For example, “buy a shot of Irish Whiskey and get a free Harp Lager” is a meaningful way to upsell guests.
Advertise your deliveries well before March 17th to drive more pre-paid revenue. In your marketing messages, include an invitation or discounted ticket to your event.
SevenRooms data shows that reservations with a prepayment attached spend over 35% more per guest than those without it. SevenRooms’ reservation platform makes adding custom upgrades, events and experiences easy. Learn more.
Learn how Balance Hospitality Group drove $1.3M with email marketing and Fabio Vivianni drove $440k with text marketing in six months.