Restaurant Soft Opening: What Is It & Should You Have One?

Key takeaways

• Your rehearsal before the spotlight: A soft opening lets you test your restaurant’s operations in real-time with a curated, invite-only event before the grand reveal.

• Buzz before the big day: This exclusive preview builds word-of-mouth excitement and social media buzz that can drive strong turnout at your official opening.

• Train your team under real pressure: Soft openings offer a low-risk environment to train staff, troubleshoot systems, and fine-tune service without affecting guest perception.

• Start building repeat business early: Handing out future discounts or promos during the event encourages return visits and helps convert guests into paying customers.

• Keep it simple, then scale: Offering a limited menu streamlines prep and highlights your best dishes, while giving you valuable insights into guest preferences.

• Get honest, actionable feedback: Collecting input from friends and colleagues during your soft launch can surface key improvements before real customers arrive.

• Expect challenges, not perfection: From potential copycats to upfront costs, a soft opening isn't without drawbacks—but the long-term payoff often outweighs the risks.

Typically, when small business restaurant owners are thinking about opening the doors to a new place, they're exploring ways to build excitement among their customer base and the media and get new faces in the door. It’s a great way to make a splash with your new business.

Many restaurant owners find benefit in hosting a soft opening event: An invite-only event, unveiling of your restaurant. For a limited number of people like friends, family, colleagues, and other close acquaintances.

These are smaller, free events with a hand-picked guest list where you have the option of making the full menu available or serving certain appetizers, drinks, and meals that are fundamental to the menu. It's a curated experience special to this one night that serves as a test run for your operations and showcases the best you've got in real-time. Think of it as a trial run before the real thing.

Applying a "soft opening" approach to your opening can give you more control over the new variables you need to take into account: things like capacity limits and additional health and safety concerns.

Why have a restaurant soft opening?

Restaurants of all concepts can benefit from hosting a soft opening — either before their full grand opening or during a "reopening." We asked around, and here are the four big reasons why local business owners choose to host soft openings at their restaurant.

1. Build hype

Soft openings can build word-of-mouth buzz well before your grand opening, so your loyal customers can help generate free publicity and awareness for the proper opening set to occur later. This sets the tone for a successful official launch.

Allowing guests to tell their friends and social media followers about their exclusive look at the best new restaurant in town can drum up interest when you’re ready to officially open.

Allowing guests and local influencers to tell their friends and social media followers about their exclusive look at the best new restaurant in town can drum up interest when you’re ready to officially open. Also, consider forming early partnerships with nearby businesses or vendors to boost attendance.

Actor Bradley Cooper and restaurateur Danny DiGiampietro held a soft launch for their new cheesesteak restaurant, Danny & Coop's, in New York City's Alphabet City neighborhood. It attracted significant attention, with notable figures like Gigi Hadid promoting it on social media. This strategic soft opening generated buzz and anticipation ahead of the official opening in January 2025.

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2. Create future revenue

Soft openings are a great way to set yourself up for a temporary revenue stream down the line. Hand out coupons for certain discount percentages, buy-one-get-one (BOGO) deals, or other pricing strategy offers that are good for a specific date or block of dates in the future.

If your guests enjoy their free experience, they’ll certainly be willing to return with money in hand, and might even become  regulars willing to pay full price for their next visit. They’ll also have something tangible to give to friends when talking about the restaurant, an incentive for them to take a risk on a new place and check it out.

It even works for the big restaurant chains: Raising Cane’s held a soft opening in San Jose that drew overnight crowds despite rain, earned support from the city’s mayor, and sparked buzz ahead of its continued Bay Area expansion.

3. Preseason practice

The restaurant soft opening is also a fantastic way to train employees and prepare them for business without sabotaging their tip potential. They’ll learn the ins and outs of your restaurant’s specific procedures and best practices, without the first impressions of actual paying customers to worry about.

Additionally, if any of the processes aren’t working to their full potential, like order input and output, restaurant POS (point-of-sale) systems, or inventory management, this is a perfect time to retool before customers get their official first taste. It’s also an opportunity for you as an operator to see what’s working efficiently and what isn’t. This is the time to make necessary tweaks before opening day. Maybe the cooking time is too long, or methods too complicated for certain dishes; perhaps there can be furniture re-arrangements to maximize space and exit lanes for both servers and customers.

When asking yourself, should you expect at a restaurant’s soft opening? George Mahe from St. Louis Magazine has an interesting perspective:

How to do a restaurant soft opening

Now that you've heard why restaurateurs run soft openings, let's go about how to do one. 

1. Offer a limited menu

Your soft opening might be more manageable if you consider only offering select entrees, appetizers, drinks, and desserts from the menu. After all, there’s less mental preparation to worry about when only a few items are being prepped, cooked, and poured.

There are certainly benefits to having the full menu available, though. Patrons might develop an immediate favorite you didn’t expect to be received so well, and plan to come back soon to have it again. 

2. Gather feedback

Your number of guests can provide valuable feedback for all aspects of the business, from the food to the service to even the dining experience. Soft openings can be used not only to practice but also to help people connect with the restaurant.”

At the end of the night, kindly ask guests to fill out a questionnaire in exchange for their free meal. It’s a great way to get outside perspective after working strictly with employees, managers, and independent contractors to get things up and running. Since your guests will predominantly be colleagues and friends, they likely want to see you succeed, and should be willing to provide actual constructive feedback for the restaurant moving forward.

3. Find the red flags

What are the downsides of a soft opening? The benefits certainly outweigh the drawbacks, but there are things to consider. 

Watch out for copycats

You want to ensure your guests have a good time and share their experiences online to spread awareness, but you do run the risk of competing restaurants stealing your creative property – whether that be menu items, ideas for decor pieces, or even table-and-chair arrangements. A competitor might already be open and able to fast-track it to the general public, beating you to the punch on your grand opening date. A good way to avoid this could be setting up an RSVP system so you can control attendance and avoid overcrowding.

Expect honest customer feedback—eventually

Don’t forget that real, potential customers can be far more brutal than friends. There’s the chance your soft opening guests will be hesitant to criticize, so when real customers come through the door for the grand opening, there may be some reality checks in order. Ensure that after the honest feedback process, there aren’t any kinks left unresolved by either your own staff or the soft opening’s guests.

Think long-term, not just ROI

There’s also the aspect that your restaurant is operating to some degree without actually generating revenue. The soft opening is essentially optional overhead, a marketing expense that offers little in the short-term. While that may be true, you should view the soft opening as a long-term investment, where you're building awareness and possibly future business, making it fiscally low-risk, but medium-to-high-reward.

Launching your restaurant soft opening

There’s considerable upside to doing a soft opening. The benefits can act as a confidence boost for when the grand opening big day comes and the proper public makes their way in. You’ll have an advantage that will set things up for success right out of the gate.

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