Top Holiday Party Tips
Turn Your Venue Into a Private Party Magnet During the Holidays

The month-long holiday season stretching from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day does what a zillion dollars worth of marketing and advertising cannot. It brings out the party spirit in the most confirmed of homebodies, magically transforming patrons who watch their wallets carefully for the remainder of the year into big-spending revelers.
    In his time as a bar and restaurant owner and operator in San Francisco, Eric Rubin, co-owner of Tres Agaves tequilaria and restaurant in South Beach, has witnessed the patron transformation time and again.
    “December is by far the best month of the year,” Rubin says. “Thursday through Saturday of the two weeks before Christmas are six of the best nights of the year.”
And to Rubin, who owns Tres Agaves jointly with well-known San Francisco chef and restaurateur Joseph Manzari, there’s no better way to cash in on the collective holiday spending spree than by hosting private seasonal parties and gatherings for patrons who want to celebrate with friends, family and co-workers in style.
“They are money-makers, as companies are much less cost-conscious at Christmas,” Rubin says.
    “They want it to be special and are very open to upgrade packages.”
At Tres Agaves, Rubin has the ideal setup to host private parties year-round and particularly during the holiday season — with his Tequila Tasting Room, which seats 24 patrons for dinner and 40 for a reception, and his La Plaza del Agave, the main private party room that accommodates 110 patrons for a sit-down gathering and 200 for holiday cocktail receptions.
“The key element is making whoever is the meeting planner a hero the next day at the office,” Rubin says. “Always keeping that in mind is the single most important thing.”

It’s Party Time
    At Zuppa, an upscale casual Italian dining restaurant and lounge not far from Tres Agaves, owner Joseph Manzari had private parties in mind from the very conception of the venue.
    “Zuppa has three levels,” Manzari says. “Usually, we book it for any where from 10 to 70 people. The mezzanine level can be booked for one to 25 or so. Globe, another San Francisco restaurant owned by Manzari, has a private room for 14. “When patrons want to have more people, they usually book the whole restaurant to the tune of about ten thousand dollars,” he says.
    And the same goes for Manzari’s Pescheria. “We have a patio area outside for about 20, or like Globe, they rent out the whole space for $7,000-8,000.”
In San Francisco, Manzari says people start booking holiday parties as early as August because they understand how busy the  fall season can get in the city.
Once party bookers have decided on dates, wines, menus, etc., Manzari says there is usually a contract and a deposit involved in reserving the event.
He says key elements for operators to keep in mind are day of the week, number of people, menu, drink service and choice of sit-down plated food or sit-down family style food or buffet. Manzari also places a premium on the time of the year in order to maximize his profits.
    “For example, it will cost more to book the last three weekends of December, as it is all booked up and especially if they would like to do a buyout,” Manzari says. “Although we do buyouts, we don’t like to over-do it with them, because if you do, it will piss off your regular costumers.”
    “The staff at Globe, Zuppa and Pescheria typically seek private parties all year by staying in touch with concierges from the hotels and our convention and visitors bureaus,” Manzari says. “When all is said and done, we do book plenty of private parties at all my restaurants. The people love it, and they tell a friend who tells a friend and luckily, we are always busy.”
    No one in the city does a private holiday party better than he does, says Manzari, a chef who trained under some of the finest culinary masters in the country.
“You know, I came from the Wolfgang Puck school of catering, and being in L. A. for so long and catering to Hollywood’s elite, it all seems easy after that experience.”                      NCB