Reflecting on our first Restaurant Week
Apologies for not posting this earlier, but we've had to take a bit of a breather, which was followed by several review meetings with restaurants and a long, hard look at feedback.
Overall, it is safe to say that the inaugural Restaurant Week has been very successful. Our aim was to establish the concept for both customers and restaurants and we feel it has been understood and appreciated. There was plenty of interest shown, but more importantly this interest was translated into real reservations and meals. Given this, we are confident that we should have more Restaurant Weeks in Mumbai as well as other cities and we hope for your support in making it successful each time.
Love stats? Well, this website received over 6,000 unique visitors who each spent an average of 5:22 minutes; we managed to con over 810 of you to become fans on Facebook. Over 1,100 users registered to make a booking, 635 of you had confirmed reservations (of which 433 tables turned up) and 1,307 people dined during the week. 154 of you filled in our Feedback forms (Thank you!) and 72% thought their meal was either great or good. 71% had never dined at that restaurant before and based solely on the Restaurant Week meal, 53% would dine again at that restaurant while 25% said maybe. Last statistic - 86% will participate in Restaurant Week next year (yay!).
This is the first time such a concept has been executed, so there were a few glitches and we apologise - we hope next year will be smoother. Although most people were not affected, a small percentage had issues verifying their email addresses. Additionally, due to a glitch in the verification software, there were a few instances when we were overbooked. We did all we can to get you that table, but sadly we had to call a handful of you to tell you your confirmation was done in error and we apologise for this. Other than that, very few of you went through our blog for menus or FAQs - we will make these more prominent next year.
From our point of view, our main worry is in reducing the no-shows - people who have confirmed reservations and either cancel at the last minute or do not turn up at all. While our ratio of confirmed vs actual is roughly in line with industry standards, it isn't fair to those on the wait list that you tell us so late that we cannot call anyone up to go in your place. Simply not turning up is just out of order. Any suggestions from a consumer point of view?
All in all, it has been a wonderful week for us and we have already started planning two Restaurant Weeks for early next year. We would like to thank all of you for your support and hope it will be a bigger and better Restaurant Week the next time around.
Toodles!
Wrapping up
It has been, as you would imagine, a week of stress and despair, relief and elation, with a little bit of illness thrown in for fun. The response to this inaugural Restaurant Week has been overwhelming and we have tried to keep up with email communication as much as possible. Some of you have become familiar names we love and, to some of you, our reservation system reminds you of HAL.
This is our first year and there have been teething issues, but we are glad the concept has been very well received. To help us improve, please fill out the feedback form that some of you have already received in your inbox. The same link can be filled in for every reservation you've made, by every person on your table, and even if you were on wait list and didn't get a table, we would still appreciate your feedback. Especially if you've had a bad experience.
All this will help immensely towards making your Restaurant Week experience better, and hopefully flawless, next year. We will be posting statistics and a summary of the feedback over the next few days, so watch out for that.
Toodles
Menu Update: Tote on the Turf
Peeps,
Tote on the Turf follows its sister restaurant Indigo in updating its menu as well. This will be effective from today's lunch, and has more options per course. Please have a look here.
Also, just a reminder that Tote is also unavailable to Restaurant Week customers on Sunday for lunch as they have their regular Sunday Brunch.
Menu update: Indigo
Peeps,
The menu at Indigo this weekend has been changed to have more and better options. We hope those who are booked will appreciate this - it will be introduced starting tonight's dinner. Please see the updated menu here.
Also, just a reminder that Indigo is unavailable to Restaurant Week customers on Sunday for lunch as they have their regular Sunday Brunch.
Reservation Status: Update
Peeps,
The reason we haven't blogged since Tuesday morning was that we were originally planning to have daily posts on what tables are available where. A couple of things happened since then - we realised we were sold out for all dinners and most lunches + we had to change the system to not allow reservations within 24 hours of the seating (there were too many last-minute changes and we send out reservation lists to restaurants well in advance so that they can plan accordingly).
If you're looking to get a table from now until Sunday, we suggest looking at lunch, which is generally either available or has a short wait list. Keep in mind that San-Qi isn't available for Sat lunch and Sunday all day; Indigo and Tote are not available for Sunday lunch.
Also, we really appreciate your emailing us and letting us know about any cancellations in advance. For those who have confirmed, please do show up. There are likely to be people on the wait list who would have been able to go in your place if you let us know in advance. If you're running ridiculously late, try your luck by calling the restaurant - some may still honour your reservation.
Lastly, we have sent out some auto-generated emails requesting for feedback, and it would be great if you managed to get all on your table to fill it out. If you haven't received one, please do so here. This is anonymous and we would appreciate if you filled out one for each meal; try to get all on your table to fill it out if you can. This will be very helpful for us to bring you a better Restaurant Week next year.
Merci
Reservation status: Tuesday 07 Sep
We've decided to let you know, a day in advance, what tables are still available:
Lunch -
Indigo: tables of four
San-Qi: tables of four
Tote: tables of four
Botticino: tables of two
India Jones: tables of two and tables of four
Dinner -
Indigo: tables of four
Stella 07:30 - tables of four
Stella 10:30 - 1 x table of four
Tote: tables of four
Happy booking!
Say Hello to our Lovely Interns!
We would like to introduce you to the two most integral members of the Restaurant Week Team - our interns! Tanya Vasunia (19) and Marina Kotwal (19) are working tirelessly to make sure that your Restaurant Week experience is phenomenal. Don't be surprised to find one of them calling you to confirm your reservations.
Tanya has graduated from JB Petit High School as well as Cathedral and John Connon High School and is currently a student at The University of York (UK) doing a Bsc in Psychology.
Marina has graduated from J.B. petit high school as well as H.R. College of Commerce and Econoics and currently is studying for her Bcom in H.R. College.
Make sure you are nice to them on the phone people!
Menus
For those who would like to have a peek at the Restaurant Week menus before they go for their meal, we've attached these for you. They will, of course, look much better when printed.
While these are the final menus, they are of course subject to change during the course of the week (for example, a particular ingredient may be unavailable).
Please note that all items on the RWM menu are selected from the restaurant's a la carte menu.
Different restaurants have taken different stances: for India Jones, Diners get to try each item on the menu; for Koh by Ian Kittichai, it is more of a tasting menu; for the rest there is a simple choice to be made.
In no particular order:
Hum do, hamare do
Children. Let them not get in the way of a meal at one of the participating restaurants for Restaurant Week. While some restaurants do not permit children for dinner (Stella at the Leela Kempinski doesn't allow children under 10; Koh by Ian Kittichai doesn't allow children under 12).
For the rest, the best solution would be to book a table for two - i.e., the adults who will be having the restaurant week menu - and let us know if you would like a chair or two to be added to your table and your kids can order from the a la carte menu. Please email us in advance (reservations@restaurantweekindia.com) so that we can notify restaurants early on.
Hope this helps all those parents out there.
Verification losing your reservation
Peeps,
When you search for a reservation and then sign-up, we will send you a verification. For most people, once the verification link is clicked and the website confirms this, you should get a confirmation email and this will reflect in your profile.
IF you don't get this confirmation email AND your profile doesn't reflect that reservation, please log-in and try reserving again. We are looking into this bug - so check in case it happens to you.
Apologies
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UPDATE: 02 SEP - This has now been fixed as of this morning. Sorry for the inconvenience