A Sauce guide lists six returns from restaurant community engagement: a better reputation, more satisfied staff, some operational savings, lower advertising costs thanks to free local coverage, an edge in hiring and a healthier local economy. It warns that efforts fail when restaurants overreach, and puts commitment, follow-through, creativity and planning first.
Six returns from building local ties
In its guide to community engagement for restaurants, Sauce names six separate ways that building local ties pays back:
- A stronger reputation.
- More job satisfaction among employees.
- Genuine savings on operations from certain initiatives.
- Less spent on advertising, since community events tend to earn free coverage in the local press.
- An advantage in recruiting at times when staff are hard to find.
- A healthier local economy, which the restaurant depends on too.
Why community efforts go wrong, and four disciplines that help
The guide pinpoints a common failure: a restaurant builds up local excitement about an event, then realises it has signed up for more than it can deliver. Its remedy is four disciplines, taken in order:
- Commitment: before launching, weigh up honestly what it will take in staff, hours and money, instead of finding out afterwards.
- Follow-through: once you back a cause or charity, stay with it. If a single event a year is all your team can manage, begin there and grow.
- Creativity: come up with ideas together with your staff instead of handing them down, and choose causes that suit what your restaurant already stands for, not whatever happens to be fashionable.
- Planning: draw up a proper timeline and give each task an owner, for example an event ambassador, someone coordinating social media and someone keeping the events calendar. The guide suggests these roles go to staff who see them as something for their CV rather than unpaid extra work.
Low-cost ways to give back
The guide frames deliberate giving as doing two jobs at once: it earns publicity without paying for it, and it builds goodwill no budget can buy. Among its practical suggestions:
- Pass surplus food on through apps built for the purpose. For the US, the guide names Copia, MealShare, ZeroPercent and Dine Out for No Kid Hungry; cutting food waste then doubles as a contribution to the community.
- Give the profits from a particular dish or event to a named cause. The guide says this works especially well when a community is in crisis, such as after a natural disaster or during a health emergency, because goodwill and need peak at the same moment.
- Hand on old equipment you no longer use, such as a stove, a freezer or a prep table, to schools or nonprofits nearby instead of throwing it away. Depending on where you operate, the guide notes, this may also count as a tax write-off.
- Back culinary education. The guide cites the National Restaurant Association's ProStart programme, which takes culinary arts teaching into American high schools. A restaurant can donate, act as a mentor, or hire current and former ProStart students.
For staff time, the guide holds up the tie-up between Starbucks and Points of Light, in which employees spend half of their working week volunteering with nonprofits on full pay. Few restaurants could match that. Even so, the guide argues, just one paid half-day of volunteering a year helps make giving part of a company's real values, not only its marketing copy.
Partnerships that stretch your reach
The last recommendation is to become a member of a local merchant association, less for any one campaign than to keep building relationships with other owners in the area. The guide suggests picking partners whose customers resemble yours: a vegan restaurant and a yoga studio down the road, say, or a late-night venue and the local cinema. Over time, cross-promotion, goodwill and a shared audience build on one another, provided the relationship is genuine rather than purely transactional.
What this means for your restaurant
- Before announcing anything, cost out the people, hours and money it needs; if your team can only sustain one event a year, start with one.
- Give each role an owner, such as event ambassador, social media and the events calendar, choosing staff who want the responsibility.
- Pick a cause that fits your values and stick with it rather than chasing whatever is popular.
- Start with cheap, practical giving: surplus food, old equipment, or a partnership with a nearby business whose customers overlap with yours.
Sources
This article summarises the reporting and guides listed above; the figures belong to those sources and are attributed in the text. Check anything that affects your business against your own platform agreements, payout statements and advisers.