Why Restaurant Revenue Growth Is Harder Than It Looks
Food costs and labor costs have both climbed more than 35% since 2020, according to the National Restaurant Association. Chicken, cooking oil, and even to-go containers cost more than they used to, and finding kitchen staff costs more, too. At the same time, consumer spending is inconsistent. Diners aren't giving up on restaurants altogether, but plenty are ordering one entrée instead of two, skipping the appetizer, or passing on a second round of drinks.
Put these two pressures together, and profit margins take a hit, even with a full dining room. To grow revenue in this environment, you need to do more than attract new customers. You need to increase the value of each visit who already walk through the door.
The strategies below split their focus between bringing in new business and maximizing what you already have.
12 Ways to Increase Restaurant Revenue
Maybe your dining room fills up on Friday and sits half-empty on Tuesday. Maybe you've been meaning to update your menu photos for a year. Wherever you're starting, no single tactic works for every restaurant, and the right mix depends on your size, concept, and what you already have in place. Below is a quick breakdown of all 12 ideas to increase restaurant sales, from menu tweaks to new sales channels.
At a glance: 12 revenue strategies for restaurants
# | Strategy | What it does |
|---|---|---|
1 | Optimize Your Menu for Profit, Not Just Popularity | Use menu engineering to highlight high-margin items and cut the ones that just add clutter. |
2 | Train Your Staff to Upsell Naturally | Teach simple upselling and cross-sell habits that lift average check size without feeling pushy. |
3 | Fill Slow Hours With Targeted Promotions | Use targeted promotions, like happy hour deals, to shift traffic into your slowest windows. |
4 | Add Delivery to Open a New Revenue Channel | Reach customers already browsing DoorDash for orders beyond the dining room. |
5 | Improve Your Online Presence to Drive More Orders | Keep your Google Business Profile, online menu, and social media presence sharp so customers can find and choose you. |
6 | Start a Loyalty Program to Increase Repeat Visits | Reward repeat customers to build customer retention and lifetime spend. |
7 | Raise Your Average Order Value | Use bundles, combos, and add-on prompts to grow average check size. |
8 | Host Events to Drive Incremental Traffic | Fill slow nights with live music, themed nights, or private events. |
9 | Offer Catering and Group Orders | Add catering as a larger-order revenue stream alongside daily service. |
10 | Reduce Waste to Protect the Revenue You Already Have | Cut food costs and protect profit margins by tightening waste tracking. |
11 | Use Your Data to Spot Revenue Opportunities | Most restaurants already have more data than they use. The trick is knowing where to look. |
12 | Sell Gift Cards Year-Round | Turn gift card sales into upfront revenue and new customer introductions. |
1. Optimize Your Menu for Profit, Not Just Popularity
Not every dish on your menu makes you the same amount of money. Menu engineering is the practice of designing with purpose: putting dishes with the best profit margins at the top, and removing items that just tie up kitchen capacity.
The goal is simple. The dishes that earn your restaurant the most money should be the easiest for customers to find and order.
Placement and visual emphasis. Use boxes, bold text, or position on the page to draw the eye toward high-margin items, the way a steakhouse might frame its ribeye instead of burying it in a long list of cuts.
Descriptions that sell, not just list. Instead of "grilled chicken, rice, vegetables," try language that paints a picture: "citrus-marinated chicken grilled over an open flame, served with saffron rice and charred seasonal vegetables."
Regular menu audits. Review your menu each season and cut the items nobody orders. They add prep time, inventory, and waste without adding revenue.
Detailed menu descriptions can help customers choose items more confidently. In the 2026 DoorDash & SevenRooms Delivery Trends Report, 93% of consumers said detailed, appealing menu descriptions affected what they ordered on a delivery app. On DoorDash Marketplace, restaurants that add descriptions to at least half their menu items can increase restaurant sales by over 6% on average (based on internal DoorDash analysis of SMB merchants adding merchant-written descriptions to at least 50% of menu items, 2023–2025).
2. Train Your Staff to Upsell Naturally
Upselling can raise your average check size without a bigger marketing budget or a longer menu. The trick is training staff to suggest, not push. A specific recommendation, like pairing a house margarita with a popular entrée, can feel more helpful than salesy.
Pair a drink or side with the main dish. A specific, natural suggestion beats a generic "would you like anything else?"
Mention a featured dessert or add-on at the right moment, for example, once entrées are cleared.
Keep training sessions short. Focus on the three or four items staff should prioritize that week, rather than trying to teach the whole menu at once. That keeps it manageable for your staff.
3. Fill Slow Hours With Targeted Promotions
Every restaurant has a slow stretch, whether it's Tuesday dinner or the lull between lunch and happy hour. Your Merchant Portal already has the data to find it. The Reporting tab breaks down order volume by time of day and day of week, so you can see exactly when tables are empty.
Once you know your slow window, build a promotion around it. A happy hour discount, a weekday lunch special, or a limited-time offer on a slower night can all pull in customers who might otherwise skip that visit.
You can run this directly through DoorDash Marketplace Promotions. Set up a time-limited promotion in the Merchant Portal and target it to specific hours or days, so the discount only applies when you need the traffic. Marketplace Promotions can deliver a median return of $4 in incremental sales for every $1 spent (based on internal DoorDash data from January 2025 through May 2025).
4. Add Delivery to Open a New Revenue Channel
Delivery adds a channel on top of in-person dining. The orders that come through it are largely orders that wouldn't happen otherwise.
Discovery. Over 55% of first-time DoorDash orders in 2025 came from customers browsing the app rather than searching for a specific restaurant (internal DoorDash data, Jan-Dec 2025).
Repeat business. 79% of delivery orders go to restaurants a customer has ordered from before (DoorDash 2026 Restaurant Industry Trends Report). Marketplace brings in new customers and brings back repeat business.
DashPass subscribers. These customers pay a monthly fee for $0 delivery fees and order two to three times more often than non-members (internal DoorDash data, Jan-Dec 2025). Restaurants listed on Marketplace gain automatic access to this high-frequency group.
DoorDash Marketplace connects your restaurant to millions of customers already on the app, and Dashers handle delivery, so no new logistics are required.
These two tools don’t require a big budget commitment. Both work as levers you can turn on when you want more visibility:
Sponsored Listings put your restaurant in front of more customers browsing search and category pages.
Promotions help convert customers who are already considering you.
5. Improve Your Online Presence to Drive More Orders
Most customers judge your restaurant online before they ever open the menu. If you're figuring out how to increase online restaurant sales, start with three basics: your Google Business Profile, your menu photos, and your online reviews.
Google Business Profile (GBP). This is your restaurant's free listing on Google Maps and in local search results. Keep your name, address, phone number, and hours accurate. An outdated GBP is one of the fastest ways to lose a hungry customer who's deciding where to go.
Menu photos. The same 2026 DoorDash & SevenRooms report found that 87% of consumers have chosen what to eat on a delivery app based on an appealing photo or video of the item. Restaurants that reach at least 50% menu photo coverage can increase sales by 13% on average (based on internal DoorDash analysis of SMB merchants increasing menu photo coverage from 0% to at least 50%, 2023-2025).
Online reviews. Ask happy customers to leave one, and respond to negative reviews quickly and professionally. A pattern of thoughtful responses tells new customers you're paying attention.
Keeping these three current doesn't take much time. Skip it, though, and a hungry customer searching nearby might choose the restaurant next door instead.
6. Start a Loyalty Program to Increase Repeat Visits
Returning customers cost less to bring back than new ones cost to find, and they spend more over time. Per the same 2026 DoorDash & SevenRooms report, 66% of consumers order more often from restaurants where they're active loyalty members.
A simple points-based program, where customers earn a free item after a set number of visits, works for most independent restaurants. So does a quick email or SMS to recent customers. Neither has to be complicated. The customer just has to feel recognized.
For restaurants on DoorDash Marketplace, Cross-Channel Loyalty can help. When a customer earns points on a Marketplace order, DoorDash prompts them to opt into your loyalty program, so you receive their contact info and can reach them directly through email or SMS.
In other words: Marketplace brings the customer in, and Cross-Channel Loyalty turns that order into an ongoing relationship.
7. Raise Your Average Order Value
Average order value (AOV) is the average amount a customer spends per order. It's one of the quickest fixes, since it works on customers you already have instead of ones you still need to find.
Beyond upselling, give consumers exactly what they're already asking for. According to the 2026 DoorDash & SevenRooms Restaurant Industry Trends Report:
43% are interested in family or group meal options. Bundle a combo or family meal to feel like a deal even though the total ticket goes up.
42% want premium bundles or combos. Make add-ons like drinks, sides, or dessert upgrades easy to tap on during online ordering.
On DoorDash Marketplace, Menu Manager in the Merchant Portal lets you build combos and feature items in one place.
8. Host Events to Bring In More Guests
Events can help bring in more guests without a large marketing budget. Three formats work across almost any restaurant type:
A weekly recurring event. Trivia night, live music, a themed night, or a game day watch party turns a slow night into a predictable one.
A community event. Co-host something with a local business or organization to bring in a crowd that might not otherwise walk in.
Private events. Offer a private dining or buyout option for birthdays, showers, and other group celebrations.
Occasion-based dining draws steady demand: the same report found that 86% of consumers prefer to dine in for celebrating a birthday, and 75% prefer it for holiday celebrations.
9. Offer Catering and Group Orders
Catering can bring in larger orders without needing more seats, tables, or dining room turns. It won’t replace daily service, but it can add another revenue stream alongside it.
You don't need a dedicated catering operation to start:
Build a simplified catering menu with three to five popular, high-margin items that travel well.
Set a minimum order size that makes the math work for your kitchen.
Reach out directly to corporate offices, schools, and local organizations, and make sure your Google Business Profile reflects that you offer catering.
About 38% of operators plan to add catering in 2026, per the NRA's 2026 State of the Industry report, meaning now is a good time to start.
10. Reduce Waste to Protect the Revenue You Already Have
Cutting food waste is a revenue strategy, even though it looks like a cost-control task. Every dish thrown out at the end of the night is money you already spent and never collected on.
Track what doesn't sell each day using your POS system, and adjust your order sizes so you're not prepping more of an item than customers want. Use ingredients close to expiring in a daily special instead of writing them off, and review your supplier pricing at least once a quarter. Food costs remain elevated, which makes supplier pricing one of the easier places to protect your margin.
The average restaurant runs a food cost around 32.4% of revenue. Operators who hold theirs closer to 28-30% have more margin to reinvest in growth (2026 State of the Industry report).
11. Use Your Data to Spot Revenue Opportunities
Most restaurants already have more data than they use. The trick is knowing where to look.
Two places to start: the Reporting tab in your Merchant Portal (the same one you used to spot slow hours), and your POS system's sales reports, which show which dishes and dayparts bring in the most revenue, not just the most orders.
From there, look for two or three decisions you can act on: which item to feature, which time slot needs a promotion, and which item to consider removing.
12. Sell Gift Cards Year-Round
A gift card is revenue you collect before you've served a single plate. If you sell a $50 gift card in November, the money is in your account now.
Most restaurants only push gift cards around the holidays. Promote them at the register year-round instead, and make sure customers can buy one online as easily as in person. They also bring in customers you haven't met yet: the person redeeming a gift card may never have walked into your restaurant otherwise.
Compared with some other strategies on this list, gift cards may take less ongoing management.
How to Prioritize These Strategies
Twelve strategies are a lot to tackle at once. If you're not sure where to start, work through them in three tiers instead of all at the same time.
Protect your margin first. Reduce waste and audit food costs before you spend anything on growth.
Grow sales from existing customers. Loyalty programs, upselling, and AOV improvements all work with people who already order from you.
Then grow the top line. Delivery, events, catering, and online presence bring in customers you don't have yet.
For most independent restaurants, tiers one and two tend to pay off before tier three does. For a wider look at how to increase restaurant business beyond revenue alone, start with the fundamentals and build from there.
Grow Your Revenue With DoorDash Marketplace
If your dining room is busy but sales growth has slowed, adding another ordering channel may help. DoorDash Marketplace helps restaurants reach customers ordering through the DoorDash app. Dashers handle delivery logistics, so restaurants can add delivery as another channel without managing their own fleet. Restaurants can also use tools in the Merchant Portal to run Promotions and update menu photos
Get Started on DoorDash Marketplace
Already on DoorDash? Log in to the Merchant Portal to activate Promotions and update your menu photos.
