It doesn’t matter how amazing your food is — your next food event needs to go beyond pleasing people’s tastebuds.
You can only sit in the same booth and order the same entree from the same menu so many times before boredom hits you. That’s one of many reasons why pop up restaurants are increasing in popularity.
With a pop up, you can expose your guests to different elements — immersing them in new locations, themes, flavors, and concepts.
But what is a pop up restaurant, and how do you market one?
Event organizers worldwide use Eventbrite to plan, sell, and promote their innovative and mouth-watering pop up restaurants — and we want to show you how it’s done.
Get inspired with our best pro tips on how to sell and market your pop up restaurant, and get all the inspiration you need from awesome examples of success stories.
How to market and promote your pop up restaurant
#1. Create a sense of exclusivity with an annual pop up event
#2. Tap into communities with themed pop up events
#3. Use advanced targeting to reach the right audience
#4. Collaborate with food and drink influencers
#5. Continue promoting your event on the day
How do pop up restaurants work?
Pop ups are really hot right now. In 2023, the number of new pop up restaurants opening in the US more than doubled.
So why are pop up restaurants in such high demand right now? And, more importantly, how do you set one up? Let’s take a quick look.
What is a pop up kitchen?
So what is a pop up restaurant vs a pop up kitchen? There’s no real difference. They’re both a limited-run dining experience. Chefs will often set up a pop up in an event space on a short-term basis as a way to trial new concepts or menu ideas.
Setting up a permanent restaurant is a big investment. By striking a short-term deal with an event space, pop up chefs can see how diners digest the concept before going all-in.
Your event attendees are after unique experiences — including the menu, venue, and customer experience. And nothing is more unique than temporary restaurants that might not be around tomorrow. This creates a more memorable dining experience that guests will love.
Pop ups also build a sense of FOMO (fear of missing out) due to their short lifespan. If you’re running a great pop up, diners want to sample your menu as quickly as they can.
How to start your own pop up restaurant
Opening a pop up restaurant is pretty similar to setting up any event. You’ve just got to frame your goals, prep, and operations a little differently to match your pop up’s temporary status.
1. Develop your pop up concept: What’s your restaurant concept, and how is it different from a traditional restaurant?
2. Create goals for your pop up: Are you trying to generate a certain amount of revenue, raise your chef’s profile, or test out a new menu?
3. Work out your pop up budget: How much does it cost to open a pop up restaurant? The answer depends on a variety of factors — so make sure you understand your requirements and use an event budget template.
4. Arrange a venue for your pop up: You could strike a short-term let agreement with an event space, collaborate with an existing venue, or set up a food truck in a popular part of town.
5. Secure any necessary licenses, permits, and insurance coverage: Depending on where your pop up is and what you’re selling, you’ll need to check with your local authority to find out what requirements you must fulfill. For example, you might need a temporary liquor license if you’re serving drinks.
6. Secure staff for your pop up: Hire and train your event team to ensure you fully take care of your guests when they visit.
7. Create an event page and sell event tickets to your pop up: Nobody will find your pop up unless you give it a home on the web where people can learn more and share it with friends.
8. Promote and market your pop up: To make sure you achieve your goals, you’ve got to get the word out to your target audience.
After you’ve welcomed plenty of hungry customers and have reached the end of your pop up run, crunch the numbers to assess whether you achieved your goals.
That’s where it pays to partner with a solution like Eventbrite.
With Eventbrite, you’re able to create an event page and sell tickets — and you can also manage your event marketing, check your guests in on the day, and then use the data you’ve collected to create custom reports that demonstrate your event success.
Promote and market your event
How to market and promote a pop up restaurant event
A successful pop up restaurant hinges upon your ability to get the word out to potential customers. So you need to consider an event marketing plan and what differentiates your pop up from everyone else in the restaurant industry.
That’s why we’ve rounded up five pro marketing tips that are guaranteed to help get your new food business noticed.
#1. Create a sense of exclusivity with an annual pop up event
The temporary nature of a pop up creates a sense of rarity. Use that to your advantage by promoting your pop up as a once-in-a-year chance to try out fun food concepts guests won’t find anywhere else.
You can also make your event seem more special by linking it to a holiday. That’s what Two Hearts Catering has done for its upcoming Ring in the New Year Pop Up Dinner event.
💡Pro tip: You can even create different levels of exclusiveness within your pop up. By partnering with Eventbrite, you can create multiple ticket classes so you’re able to offer a VIP experience for some of your pop up guests.
#2. Tap into communities with themed pop up events
One of the best ways to fill your pop up is by tapping into communities that are inherently more interested in your concept.
For lessons in best practice, look at Clean Slate Wine Bar and their Fiends, Feasts, and Fables event. This Dungeons & Dragons supper club series created a totally immersive experience for D&D fans to share their passions while enjoying delicious food.
In terms of event marketing, that makes targeting your audience easier on social media. But it also supports your content by giving you a really clear and obvious selling proposition because pitching a themed idea to an in-built community.
💡Pro tip: If you’re going to build your event around an existing community, authenticity is crucial. So before you start planning an event around your themed pop up, check out similar community events on Eventbrite to connect with like-minded event organizers and venues to learn more.
#3. Use advanced targeting to reach the right audience
Due to the limited nature of your pop up, you need to make sure you’re reaching your potential guests as quickly and cheaply as possible. That’s where targeted advertising comes in handy.
With Eventbrite’s marketing tools, you can optimize your social media content and email marketing activities by A/B testing and pre-scheduling your posts to upload at the perfect times.
That’s how event organizer MAMA’s Nightmarket managed to kickstart a 92% growth in sales.
You’ll even benefit from advanced features like retargeting so your pop up ads can “follow” interested users who might’ve visited your event page but didn’t end up buying tickets.
💡Pro tip: If you’re not sure how to word your content to appeal to potential guests, try using AI-generated social media content to get the creative juices flowing and boost your next campaign.
#4. Collaborate with food and drink influencers
Setting up shop in an unusual location is a great way to get people talking about your pop up — but sometimes your temporary location is less important to your audience than knowing who your pop up chef is.
What is a pop up chef?
Simply put, your chef is the person responsible for turning your vision into a tasty event people will love. That’s why it makes sense to team up with pop up chefs already operating as influencers in the food and drink space.
This enables you to leverage their existing following to expand your reach — not to mention influencers give your event an added layer of trust and authenticity.
If you need inspiration, take a look at what event organizer Aries Crow did with her recent Holiday Pop Up Dinner by The Zodiac Chef event. By building the event around her existing position as a chef influencer, her audience knew exactly what they were in for.
💡Pro tip: If you’re working with an influencer in the food industry, make the most of your collaboration on social media by tagging their profiles in sponsored posts, for example.
With a platform like Eventbrite’s marketing tools, you’ll have full visibility on all your marketing efforts at all times — making it possible to position your influencer front and center.
#5. Continue promoting your event on the day
Some organizers think their event marketing plan is over once all the tickets are sold, but you should continue promoting your pop up even after you’ve opened up your doors.
By promoting your pop up on the day, you’ll generate FOMO and demonstrate to followers who didn’t buy tickets why they need to attend your next pop up.
Event organizer Della Terra is great at this.
By showing off the amazing food menu followers are missing out on, they tempt potential guests into checking out upcoming dates and events.
💡Pro tip: People love (and trust) user-generated content. Encourage diners to capture shareable photos and reels at your event that’ll expand your reach. A great way to do that is to set up a photo booth or create a unique event hashtag that guests can use in their posts.
Let’s get poppin’
Pop ups are by far the coolest restaurant trend happening right now — and you should be a part of it. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve got an unusual location in mind or are simply looking for a way to reduce restaurant costs.
By working with pop up food vendors to create unique, one-off experiences, you’ll be able to meet your goals and tap into a new market. Just remember to consider your marketing strategy and partner with a platform that can help you achieve more bang for your buck.
That’s where Eventbrite comes in.
