A six-week Christmas marketing checklist for Glasgow restaurants and bars

Most Glasgow venues do their Christmas marketing in a single frantic week in mid-November, which is why the menu has a typo, the Google listing still says the summer hours and the vouchers turn up on 22 December. This is the alternative: six weeks, one job a week, starting in the week of 12 October. It is written around what we print and build for restaurants and bars, so every line has a price, inclusive of VAT, and a date. If you would rather hand the whole thing over, our Christmas-ready package covers the digital half.

Week one, from 12 October: settle the menu

Decide the festive set menu, the per-head price, the deposit and the pre-order terms. Decide whether there is a separate drinks list. Write it down and get the chef and whoever runs the floor to sign it off, because every other piece in this list copies text from it. If you are changing the menu after the website is live and the menus are printed, you pay twice.

If you do not have a designer, brief ours now. Christmas menu design is £49 for a single page and £99 for a folded or multi-page menu, with two rounds of changes, a print-ready PDF and a web image, delivered in 3 working days. Two rounds is enough if the content was signed off first.

Week two, from 19 October: the bookings page and your Christmas hours

Put the festive menu on your website as a page or a PDF, with a clear way to book and a line about deposits. Publish your Christmas and New Year opening hours, including the days you are closed, and put the same hours on Google Business Profile the same day. The listing is what people see when they search "restaurant near me open Christmas Eve", and a wrong answer there costs more than a wrong answer anywhere else.

The festive website update is £149 for a simple site or £299 with a new landing page, and it includes the Christmas hours, the festive menu page or PDF, a booking or voucher call to action and Google Business hours synced, delivered in 5 working days. The Google Business Profile festive refresh on its own is £99: Christmas hours, four posts, festive photos, an offer post, seeded questions and answers and a printed review card for the tables, delivered in 3 working days.

Week three, from 26 October: print the menus

With the menu signed off and designed, print it. A4 menus flat or folded to A5 on 250gsm silk are £45 for 25, £75 for 50, £120 for 100 and £199 for 250. Add lamination, matt or gloss and wipe-clean, for £15 on 25 or £40 on 100. DL drinks or dessert lists are £30 for 25. Turnaround is 2 to 3 working days, same week guaranteed if you order by Wednesday 1pm. Or take the menu design and print bundle at £149, which is the £49 design plus 50 laminated A4 menus in 5 working days. Full prices are on the Christmas menu printing page.

Print for the covers you have, not the covers you hope for. A November reprint of the same file is 10% off, so a second run in late November when the bookings are in costs less than over-ordering now.

Week four, from 2 November: the window and the front door

Window graphics are the piece people leave latest and they are the one that cannot be rushed, because vinyl is outsourced. A Christmas opening hours decal in white, up to 400mm wide, is £35. A snowflake and festive decal set of 12 pieces is £45. A printed window vinyl panel is £49 at A2 and £89 at A1, and a full custom window graphic is quoted within the working day. The hard cut-off is Friday 11 December at 12 noon, but ordering in the first week of November means the window is dressed before the party bookings start walking past. See the window graphics page for the set.

While the window is being done, order the table talkers: 350gsm tent cards are £35 for 25, and they are the best place to sell a festive cocktail or a voucher to people who are already sitting down.

Week five, from 9 November: vouchers and social

Gift vouchers are the easiest Christmas money a venue makes, and most of them sell in the fortnight before Christmas to people who have run out of ideas. Printed, individually numbered DL vouchers on 350gsm silk are £35 for 50, £55 for 100 and £95 for 250, with DL envelopes at £10 for 50. Voucher design is £39 flat, free on 100 or more. Have them on the counter by the end of November. If you want to sell them online too, the digital gift voucher set-up is £249: a voucher page on your site with card checkout, an emailed PDF voucher and a redemption list, delivered in 7 working days. Both are on the gift vouchers page.

Social is the same week. The festive social kit is £149 for 12 branded posts sized for Instagram and Facebook plus two story templates, delivered in 5 working days. Schedule them across late November and December rather than posting all twelve in one week. And if you are planning a Black Friday push, ours runs 27 to 30 November: £5 off every poster and print from two, a free A3 poster with any menu reprint and 10% off the festive social kit.

Week six, from 16 November: the reprint, the staff and the New Year

By now the bookings tell you what you actually need. Reprint the menu if the numbers have moved; it is 10% off in November. Brief the staff on the set menu, the deposit rule and where the vouchers are kept. Put the review card from the Google refresh on the tables.

Then think about January, because December is too late. Any venue that orders menus, cards or vouchers from us in November or December gets the design file supplied free when they book January work before 19 December: a January menu reprint, sale signage, a booking website or a website refresh. The booking website is £40 to £80 a month and January launch slots are sold in December, live within a fortnight of the start. A New Year website refresh is from £1,500, and a 20% deposit in December secures a January slot. The New Year post goes through the options.

The dates, so nothing slips

Outsourced items, which for a venue means window vinyl and any foil, must be ordered by Friday 11 December at 12 noon. In-house work we post, which means menus, vouchers and table talkers, by Friday 18 December at 1pm. In-house collection orders by Wednesday 23 December at 12 noon, subject to press time, phone first. We are closed from Thursday 24 December to Monday 4 January and reopen on Tuesday 5 January 2027 at 9am. Delivery is free across Central Scotland on orders over £50, and a same-day courier is £5 in the city centre and £15 elsewhere in Glasgow. Every product above is on the Christmas printing hub. For anything faster than standard, phone 0141 345 5841 for same-day or next-day and we confirm the timeline and the price on the call.