To get more restaurant customers in the slow season, sell to the people who live, work and study near you. The summer crowd won't be back until June. A stamp card and free-fries flyers for nearby workplaces bring locals back for far less than a buy-one-get-one-free (BOGO) deal. Stop the BOGO deals, and don't add more burgers to the menu.
First, though, cut staff to about 30% of sales and close the hours that lose money. Otherwise the rent runs out before the new customers arrive.
Cut costs to fit off-season sales first
A shop that opens in summer is built for summer. When sales fall by half, most costs stay at summer size, and that gap is your loss.
Here is a burger shop like yours, in US dollars, in 2026. The average order is $20, a $14 burger costs $4.20 to make, and staff cost $18 an hour with taxes on wages included.
| Summer week | October week now | October week after the cuts | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Orders | 900 | 400 | 375 |
| Sales | $18,000 | $8,000 | $7,500 |
| Food and packaging (30%) | $5,400 | $2,400 | $2,250 |
| Staff | 250 hours, $4,500 | 250 hours, $4,500 | 120 hours, $2,160 |
| Rent ($6,000 a month) | $1,385 | $1,385 | $1,385 |
| Card and app fees (5%) | $900 | $400 | $375 |
| Power, insurance, kiosks and the rest | $800 | $800 | $700 |
| Profit or loss | +$5,015 | −$1,485 | +$630 |
Divide the cash in the bank by the weekly loss. With $6,000 in the bank and a loss of $1,485 every week, this shop has four weeks left. The cuts below turn that loss into a $630 profit before one new customer walks in.
Cut staff hours to 30% of sales
At a burger shop where guests order at the counter, staff should cost about 25% to 30% of sales. That is a rule of thumb, not a law. On $7,500 a week, 30% is $2,250, or 125 hours at $18, and the example plans 120.
Keep your two or three best people and give them steady shifts. The owners work the quiet shifts themselves until spring. Post the new schedule two weeks ahead, and read the US rules before you send staff home early.
Close the hours that lose money
Pull two weeks of sales by hour from your POS or kiosk report. An hour pays for itself when its sales, after food and fees, cover the wages of the people on shift. Here food and fees take 35% of each sale, so you keep $0.65 of every dollar.
Two people at $18 cost $36 an hour, and $36 ÷ 0.65 is $55. Any hour that sells less than $55 loses money with two people on. With one person on, the line is $28.
Say Mondays now sell $500 in 11 hours, and 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. sells $90 a night. Both come to about $45 an hour, so close on Mondays and close at 8 p.m. The example loses about $500 of weekly sales, because some of those guests come on another day instead. Change your hours on Google the same day, or locals drive to a locked door.
Make less food, not cheaper food
Your house-ground beef, hand-cut fries and house sauces are why people give you five stars. Keep them, and cut the amount you make instead. A summer prep list in October ends in the bin.
Set a par level for each item. A par level is the amount you need until the next prep. If Thursdays now sell 60 burgers, grind beef for 66, not the 130 you ground in July.
In 2026, the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service still gives raw ground beef only 1 to 2 days in the fridge. At $6.50 a pound, 10 pounds in the bin each day is $390 a week over six days. Batter onion rings to order on days they sell fewer than 10, and make sauces in batches that last two days, not five.
Talk to your landlord before rent day
Call the landlord before the rent is late, not after. Bring your summer and October sales and a plan in writing. For example, pay 60% of the rent from November to April, and pay back the rest over June, July and August.
In the example, that keeps $2,400 a month in the bank through the winter. The $14,400 goes back as $4,800 extra a month next summer, and the summer profit covers it. An empty shop pays the landlord nothing, so a plan with numbers is easier to say yes to than a late payment.
Don't fill the gap with a merchant cash advance. It gives you cash now and takes a share of every card sale until it's paid back. It usually costs far more than a bank loan. Read why cash advances trap restaurants in debt before you sign one.
How to get more restaurant customers in the slow season
In the off-season, your customers live, work or study within a few miles of you. Each idea below gives them a reason to come back every week, costs little, and lets you count what it brings at the till.
Take free-fries flyers to nearby workplaces
List every workplace within a 10-minute drive that stays open all year: the hospital, schools, the fire station, offices, car dealers, gyms and hotels. Their staff eat lunch every weekday, summer or winter.
Print 500 small flyers with one offer: free fries with any burger, until November 30. Put a different letter on each workplace's flyers, H for the hospital and F for the fire station, so you know which ones work. Hand them out in person between 10 and 11:30 a.m. On the first visit, bring a tray of 10 sliders, small burgers, for the break room; they cost you about $13.
If 500 flyers cost $50 to print and 20 come back, the free fries cost 20 × $0.80 = $16. That is $66, or $3.30 for each new guest, and each one also buys a $14 burger. If five of the 20 then come once a week until May, that is 5 × $20 × 26 weeks = $2,600 in sales.
Hand flyers to people, never onto parked cars (see the US rules below).
Give regulars a stamp card
A stamp card is the cheapest loyalty program there is, and it rewards regulars, the guests who come often. Stamp it once for each meal, and make the tenth burger free. The free burger costs you $4.20 in food after nine paid meals of about $20. That is about 2% of what the guest spent.
Ask for the guest's birthday month on the card, and give free fries in that month. They cost you $0.80, and the friends who come along pay full price.
If your POS has points instead, give $5 back for every $100 spent. That costs 5% of what members spend, so price it in: $0.70 more on a $14 burger pays for it.
In December, hand out a scratch card, a card guests rub to see if they won, with every order. Make one card in three a winner: free fries, a free drink or a $10 gift card. Guests come back to use the prize, but a prize game needs a free way to enter, so read the US rules below first.
Hold a fundraiser night with a local school
At a fundraiser night, you give part of one evening's sales to a school or a kids' sports team. The school sends your flyer to every parent, so families who have never tried you come in. In 2026, Chipotle gives 25% of event sales to the cause; 20% is enough for a small shop.
Pick a Tuesday or Wednesday, your slowest nights. Count only the sales from guests who show the flyer or name the school. Set a minimum before you pay out, like $500 in those sales. Ask the school's parent group, the PTA, or the team's coach.
Say 60 families come and spend $35 each, which is $2,100. You give 20%, or $420, and food and fees take $735. One extra person for four hours costs $72, so you keep $873 on a night that usually sells $1,250.
Give students an after-school deal
If a school is within walking distance, 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays is yours to fill. Offer a student combo with a student ID: a single-patty burger, small fries and a drink for $9.
The combo costs you about $3.50 in food and packaging. After card fees you keep about $5, in hours when your staff are already there. Twenty combos a day, Tuesday to Friday, is about $420 a week. Keep the deal out of lunch and dinner, so full-price guests don't switch to it.
Sell a drink with every deal. A $3 fountain drink costs you about $0.45, cup included.
Keep Google and Facebook up to date
When a local searches for a burger nearby, Google Maps shows your hours, menu, photos and reviews. Keep all four true, and add a Google post for every event, like the fundraiser night. A near-five-star rating sells better with more reviews behind it, so ask every happy regular for one: here is how to get more Google reviews.
On Facebook, run one gift card draw a month. End each daily special post with: "Comment with your favorite burger to enter the draw for a $25 gift card." Pick the winner at random on the last day of the month and post the name. The prize costs you about $7.50 in food, and the comments put the post in front of more people.
Don't ask for shares or tags, for the reason in the US rules below.
Stop BOGO deals and paid app promotions
A BOGO deal hands a free $14 burger to everyone who uses it, regulars who would have paid full price included. It asks for nothing back, and it teaches guests to wait for the next deal. The offers above pay out only after a visit, or cost you food instead of lost sales.
| Offer | What it costs you | Who gets it |
|---|---|---|
| BOGO burger | $4.20 in food, or $14 when a regular would have paid | Everyone, every visit |
| Free-fries flyer | $3.30 per new guest, printing included | New guests, once |
| Stamp card | $4.20 in food after $180 of paid meals | Regulars, after nine visits |
| Fundraiser night | $420 on $2,100 of new sales | Families who have never been in |
| Gift card draw | About $7.50 in food | One guest a month |
Delivery app promotions cost you twice. On its Plus plan, Uber Eats keeps 25% of each order, according to Restaurant Dive in March 2026. When the guest pays for Uber One, its membership, Uber Eats keeps 30%. On a $25 order that is $6.25 gone before food, and a paid "save $5" promotion comes on top.
Stop paid promotions in the app until spring, but keep the listing for locals who order in. The real maths of delivery apps shows how to price it.
Run a happy hour only in hours that sell less than $55, when your staff would stand around anyway. Kiosks help the guests inside order more, but they bring nobody new through the door. Save food bloggers for spring, when their posts reach people who are planning a beach trip.
Should you add more items to the menu
No more burgers. Six burgers, three sides and house sauces make a good-size menu for a burger shop: less stock, less waste and a fast line. A longer menu won't bring more people in the slow season, only more food to throw away.
Add one item at most, and only if it brings people you don't get now. A crispy chicken sandwich is the best pick. It uses your fryer, your buns and your sauces, and it serves guests who don't eat beef. In August 2026, boneless chicken breast cost $4.17 a pound in US stores and ground beef $6.92, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Price it next to your burgers and test it for six weeks. Keep it if it sells at least one for every ten burgers. If it doesn't, read what to do with your worst-selling menu items before you cut it.
US rules for flyers, giveaways and prize draws (2026)
Many US towns ban flyers on parked cars. Barnstable, on Cape Cod in Massachusetts, is one of them. Search your town's code for "handbills", the legal word for flyers, before you print, and hand flyers to people instead.
In most states, a prize given by chance to people who had to buy something counts as an illegal lottery. So a scratch card or a draw needs a free way to enter. Print "no purchase needed" on it, and give a free card to anyone who asks at the counter.
Write short rules for every draw: who can enter, the end date, the prize and how you pick the winner. In 2026, New York and Florida make you register and post a bond when the prizes add up to more than $5,000. A bond is money set aside as a promise that the prizes get paid. A $25 gift card a month is far below that line.
Meta's promotion rules for Facebook Pages say a promotion must not require or reward sharing, reposting or tagging others. That is why the draw above asks for a comment. Rules change, so check with your state attorney general's office before you run a big prize game.
Save next summer's money for next winter
In the example, a summer week makes $5,015, so 12 summer weeks make about $60,000. That money has to carry the shop through nine quiet months.
Next summer, move $2,000 into a separate savings account every week, on the day you pay staff. Twelve weeks of that is $24,000, or four months of rent. Hire summer staff as seasonal staff, with an end date in their offer, so the September cut is planned. When it's time for a new lease, put the seasonal rent plan in writing before you sign.
Do this week
- Pull two weeks of sales by hour, and close every hour that sells less than $55 with two people on.
- Cut paid staff hours to about 30% of sales: 125 hours on $7,500 a week.
- Call your landlord before rent day with a seasonal plan in writing.
- Print 500 free-fries flyers with a letter for each workplace, and hand them out at 10 workplaces.
- Book one fundraiser night with a school or team on a Tuesday in November.