End-of-year restaurant checklist to prepare for 2026

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It’s hard to believe, but 2025 is already nearing its end. Another turn of the year provides a good opportunity for restaurant owners to review the state of their establishments—its strengths, weaknesses, and future. “Onward and upward” is a good motto for a business, but that “upward” needs to be specifically defined with clear goals. With that in mind, let’s discuss preparing your restaurant for 2026.

Naturally, you want to increase sales and improve your overall bottom line. But focusing on numbers alone doesn’t work in a very human business like the restaurant industry. Although technology like artificial intelligence and other automations are crucial parts of new tech stacks, the human side must still be front and center in your business.

Here’s an end-of-year checklist for 2026. Some advice right off the bat: Start early to prevent end-of-year chaos like the holiday season adding stress to your checklist planning.

13 end-of-year restaurant checklist items

Ready to take your restaurant business to the next level? Use this end-of-year restaurant checklist to look for ways to up-level the guest experience, streamline processes, and boost profits.

1. Assess your delivery and takeout options

The end of the year is a good time to look at the delivery and takeout portion of your business. If you don’t currently offer delivery or takeout, consider if it’s something you should add. If you do have delivery and/or takeout, take a look at your current process:

• Do you offer online ordering? Making it easy for customers to order could help increase sales. For most restaurants, it won’t be feasible to build a custom ordering system or mobile app, but there are many third-party platforms you can plug into your website.
• Is delivery a value driver for your restaurant? If you’re offering delivery, look at the costs and value associated with it. For example, compare the costs of a third-party delivery system vs. having your own in-house delivery team. Services like DoorDash may take a 15%-30% cut. However, factor in how these platforms serve as marketing tools as well by getting eyes on your menu items and attracting new customers.

2. Start or refresh your loyalty program

If you don’t yet have a customer loyalty program, it may be time to start one. Loyalty programs can lead to better customer retention and increased sales.

Already have a loyalty program? Great! Use this time to take stock of how it’s going:

• Is enrollment low? Make sure customers know about it by adding tabletop signage or asking guests if they want to join during checkout. Also, ensure it’s enticing to sign up. Most customers (58%) are motivated to sign up for a loyalty program when they receive an immediate reward to use on their current purchase.
• Are your rewards enticing enough to get customers to come back? If signups are good but usage is low, consider your reward structure. It’s great to earn a discount or free food after spending a certain amount or visiting a certain number of times, but also consider adding exclusive deals or limited-time offers just for loyalty members. For example, give 2x points on Mondays or offer surprise daily deals.
• Are you operating a tiered system or a one-size-fits-all system? A tiered system rewards your most loyal customers with better perks. It also adds an element of gamification as program members can work toward gaining a higher status level.

3. Update or refresh the waiting and dining areas

One way to optimize the guest experience is by making sure your waiting and dining areas look nice, are functioning well, and keep customers comfortable during their meal. Here are some things to take note of during your end-of-year check:

• Make sure chairs are comfortable, clean, and in good shape.
• Update your artwork or décor if it seems dated.
• Know your audience and play fitting music at an appropriate volume. Don’t bore your diners with repetitive tunes; put thought into creating a unique playlist.
• Make check-in a breeze. Consider options like Yelp Kiosk as host support, which can handle customer check-ins and automatically provide wait times.

4. Gauge what guests think of your restaurant

If you want to make changes based on what your customers would like to see, leave an anonymous survey on your tables. Customers can fill these out on a template at the end of their dining experience and leave you their honest feedback.

You can also take a digital approach with Yelp Guest Experience Surveys. The platform sends surveys automatically and compiles responses into a dashboard that makes it easy to spot trends.

Listening to reasonable requests can yield good ideas that you may not have considered yet. As repeat business is the lifeblood of any restaurant, knowing your customers’ wants better than they do can keep you ahead of the curve.

5. Check in on staff needs and morale

Keeping good employees is one of the biggest challenges in the food service industry. Consistently high turnover rates mean potentially losing good staff. So it’s worth it to motivate your top performers to stay with you rather than jump ship for a better opportunity.

Here are some ways to make sure you’re meeting staff needs and supporting morale:

• Provide raises or bonuses to top performers.
• Offer perks like staff food, flexible schedules, regular breaks, and vacation time.
• Maintain clear channels of communication, and ask for employee feedback so they feel heard and respected.
• Hold year-end training sessions to help staff stay up with any changes you may make to your equipment, menu, or service style. It provides a good opportunity for refreshers for old hands and critical info for new hires that could benefit from extra training. Pair up staff with managers or more experienced staff for an apprentice-style training regimen.
• Create a plan for understaffing, and consider adopting scheduling software that streamlines staffing and takes manual work off of managers’ plates.

6. Find ways to reduce waste

Sustainability isn’t just an industry trend or a buzzword—it’s a valuable goal for all restaurants. Limiting food waste is a good place to start.

Are you regularly losing food due to expiration and rot? Is a lot of food being thrown out from customers’ plates? Here are ways to make adjustments in 2026:

• Conduct a thorough inventory survey to see what goes bad most often, and consider nixing menu items that aren’t selling well enough to use up their ingredients before they expire.
• If customers often don’t finish their meals, consider shrinking your portion sizes so you don’t have to throw out uneaten meals.
• Adopt modern inventory management software that automatically updates your inventory and can automate orders as well.

7. Review your finances

Meet with your accountant to get a full view of all expenses. A bird’s eye view can give you an idea of where costs can be trimmed. Some examples include:

• Unused software subscriptions
• Overpriced insurance
• High utility bills
• Overstaffing

You’ll also want to start prepping for tax season. Taxes in the restaurant industry are complicated, we know, but you could end up saving more money than you expect via tax deductions. For example, labor costs, food costs, and advertising costs are all tax deductible—which can lead to significant savings if your bookkeeping is tight.

8. Develop partnerships

No restaurant exists in a bubble. As an end node of the supply chain, for example, restaurants form a crucial part of the economy. But the social aspect of running a restaurant is just as important as the economic side, and that includes partnerships with other local businesses. Some steps to take:

• Form alliances with other businesses: Create a network effect—customers who are patrons at one business will get funneled to another that’s promoted.
• Offer discounts to customers referred from your partners: Developing a rewards program that covers multiple businesses, or run events at each others’ businesses, e.g., a pop-up menu tasting event at a partner brewery.

9. Conduct an equipment review

It’s wise to perform regular maintenance on kitchen equipment—after all, nothing slows down service and creates bottlenecks like burners not working correctly or a broken oven.

• Deep clean and perform end-of-year checks on all kitchen equipment: This can help you plan ahead for the upcoming year, giving you an idea of strategic planning you’ll need to do to repair or replace any equipment that could become a liability.
• Swap out old, inefficient kitchen equipment: If you have solid cash flow, consider more efficient tools that use less electricity and thus boost profitability.
• Talk to your staff about their equipment needs: If your cooks are clamoring for a new tool and you can afford it, go for it.

10. Streamline the front of house

Upgrading your in-house tech is one of the best ways to streamline restaurant operations. POS systems’ functionality are better than ever, allowing for quick payments, order inputs at the table via tablet, and much more.

Paired with front-of-house (FOH) systems like Yelp Guest Manager gives you all the tools you need to make a customer’s dine-in experience pleasant and hassle-free. Some ways it can benefit your business:

• Fills tables by listing them on Yelp, Facebook, TikTok and more.
• Provides hosts with accurate wait time estimates based on real-time data.
• Improves cover flow with custom floor maps and seating policies.
• Tableside credit card payments, which speed up service and increase your table turn rate.
• Manage reservations and waitlist with automated alerts and two-way texting.

11. Make a social media plan

Social media has come a long way in recent years, and restaurants would be wise to keep up with social media marketing trends. Having a solid presence on social media apps like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Yelp is a must. Quick videos on TikTok or enticing photos on Instagram are a great way to show off your menu items and attract guests.

Set up a multi-month or year-long social media restaurant marketing strategy to help you stay on track and not get stuck in procrastination-ville, where many social media campaigns go to die.

Look into AI tools to help you with your marketing copy. AI is a boon to digital marketing. Creating images and short videos is easier than ever with many AI programs, and so is writing marketing copy. So look to ramp up your social media game and go rapid-fire with posts and advertisements.

12. Look for insights in your data

Using a data-driven approach to making new decisions is the way forward, but there’s so much customer data! Not to worry—sic your favorite AI tool on the vast amounts of data your FOH software captures and ask it specific questions to glean insight you might not have caught otherwise. Questions to consider asking an AI platform you’ve fed data:

• What days do we sell the most cocktails?
• What menu items perform best in the winter?
• What menu items perform worst overall and may be worth removing?
• What are the busiest days of the week, month, and year?

Pairing AI tools with this data can help you get down to the nuts and bolts of customer preferences.

13. Streamline with an AI phone answering service

AI phone answering services are a valuable new tool for restaurants, as they automate phone answering and alleviate the burden on hosts. For example, Yelp Host handles every phone call 24/7, automates bookings, and answers FAQs using information pulled directly from your Yelp Page. Good news, too, for restaurants that often get phone spam: Yelp Host filters spam and wrong numbers, saving valuable time and preventing frustration.

Yelp Host is just $149 for 500 calls, or $99 for Yelp Guest Manager users. It’s free to try for up to 30 days, so add it to your checklist as a new tool to scope out.

Prepare for success in the new year

The 13 items in the checklist above will give restaurant owners a good start in getting ready for the upcoming year. Look at all facets of your restaurant: your customer-facing side, your staff, your financials, and your equipment and tech.

We mentioned Yelp Guest Manager above. It’s an all-round FOH platform that comes with all the bells and whistles restaurateurs need at a reasonable price and with no charge per cover. You’ll have access to fully customizable settings and a robust, hands-on onboarding process with a dedicated customer service manager, so front-of-house management is a breeze.

Curious if it’s right for you? 2026 is right around the corner, and we want to help you get excited for the new year. Reach out to us for a free demo and we’ll get started!