Hosting a party at a restaurant is a great way to take most of the stress out of entertaining! To elevate your gathering, we have a few simple tips to for how to make your next restaurant party more memorable.
We recently celebrated the holidays at a lunch with some of our local blogging buddies. Everything turned out so cute that we wanted to share photos and a few tips for how to host a stress-free get together with friends over the holidays.
Eating out means no one has to clean house or prepare any food… all the hard work is done and you can just focus on adding a few decorative touches to make things more festive.
For a low-key gathering we highly recommend meeting up at a favorite restaurant. Eating out means no one has to clean house or prepare any food… all the hard work is done and you can just focus on adding a few decorative touches to make things more festive. There is already so much to do this time of year that it’s easy to get stressed out, and this approach ensures a fun holiday party that you can actually enjoy!
How to host a party at a restaurant
The Supermom Secret for hosting a party at a restaurant is to add some of your own decor. If we have a particular theme or look in mind we pick a restaurant that will mesh well with that concept. Although sometimes you’ll know exactly where you want to eat — we had already chosen to meet up at a local pizza place that sets their tables with classic red-and-white-check tablecloths. We also had already worked with Shutterfly to create these adorable “Super Mom” Ornaments for everyone (win one below!). So we came up with this Mod Christmas theme that married the two.
It doesn’t take much to make a restaurant table feel festive. We have done this type of party several times, and our formula is simple:
- Have a party favor to set at each person’s spot +
- Create some kind of table runner or centerpiece =
- Just enough to make your party feel thoughtful and special!
For our party favor we had black-and-white striped bags containing these official “Super Mom” ornaments. We were so excited about how our glass ornaments from Shutterfly turned out, and they have so many great templates that you can customize to suit your own party.
table decor at a restaurant table
Our table-runner was created using a roll of kid’s art paper painted with black craft paint. We rolled out a generous length on our kitchen floor and used watered-down paint and a wider brush to make the stripes, which we intentionally made imperfect because that’s so much easier to achieve!
We are sharing a free printable pack with the templates for our Mod Paper Trees and the red and pink confetti. To make the trees (inspired by these from CB2), print on cardstock as many copies of the template as desired. Cut out the two tree pieces and slit where shown. One piece will be slit from the top to halfway down, and the other from halfway to the bottom. Fit the two pieces together to create the free-standing tree.
The confetti is made by printing a solid red and pink template on double-sided cardstock. Then just punch out confetti using any punch you like, we used a 2-inch circle punch.
Download our Free Printable Mod Tree Centerpiece Templates
more restaurant party tips
A few more restaurant party tips…
- Work with the restaurant ahead of time. When making the reservation at our desired restaurant we also gave them a heads up that we would like to arrive 15 minutes early to setup a few decorations. I always assure them that it will be low key, and I’ve never had any problems.
- Be clear about who’s paying. At a restaurant party, it is important to be clear about who is picking up the tab. It is easy for guests to assume that the hosts are covering the check. If you want to split checks, it is wise to specify “appetizers provided” on the invitation to let guests know you only plan to cover that portion of the meal.
- Consider making a special menu. If you are planning to cover the check, you may want to work with the restaurant staff ahead of time to select a party menu. Since our meal was pizza, which is meant to shared, we ordered our pizzas and salad ahead and prepared a special menu to pass out for our guests. Of course if you want your own menu, it will be up to you to create and print one for your guests.
Here’s that official “Super Mom” ornament hanging on my tree. It’s so much fun designing your own ornaments. I want to make a whole set of glass ornaments from Shutterfly.
Download our Free Printable Mod Tree Centerpiece Templates
Bettijo Bridges
Administrator at Paging Supermom
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