Taco Bell is bringing back nacho fries to boost January business. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
The gap between New Year's Eve and Valentine's Day has always been tough for restaurants, who see business drop between the holidays.
The frigid cold of recent days across much of the country isn't helping, either. That explains why your email box and your mobile devices are filling up with specials from the places you frequent.
In 2018, restaurants reported a 0.3 percent decline in January sales, compared with 2017, according to QSR, an industry trade publication. A year ago, the industry was wrestling with winter storms in New England, the Midwest and the mid-Atlantic.
Restaurant marketing experts recommend a variety of steps to get customers out of the house (or at least to order food for delivery). Among them: offer a special, and that's exactly what some big names are doing.
Starbucks, which traditionally enjoys strong fourth quarter sales thanks to a variety of fall and holiday drinks, is trying to make that limited time magic work in the new year.
It recently introduced the cinnamon shortbread latte, which it calls "shortbread made sippable." If you like drinking something cookie flavored, the cinnamon shortbread latte includes espresso, brown butter shortbread sauce, topped with nutmeg and cinnamon.
If you're immune to cold temperatures, or the weather is warm where you are (lucky you), there's also a cinnamon shortbread frappuccino. It has ice-blended milk, with the same brown butter sauce, and whipped cream.
Fans of Taco Bell will be interested to know that its popular nacho fries will be back on its menu beginning Thursday. Some Taco Bell locations have already been giving out free samples.
Nacho fries, in their plainest form, are seasoned french fries served with a nacho cheese sauce. They come in other iterations, including nacho fries bellgrande, topped with cheese, beef, tomatoes and reduced fat sour cream and a nacho fries box, which includes a burrito and a taco.
But January specials aren't just for quick service restaurants. Across the country, a number of cities are holding Restaurant Week, in which restaurants offer special prix fixe lunch and dinner menus for a lower price than if diners ordered a la carte.
In the Washington, D.C., area, restaurants decided to extend Restaurant Week through the end of this week because of the government shutdown, the Washington Post reported.
Area restaurants estimate their business has dropped as much as 20 percent compared with a year ago, according to the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington.
Restaurant Week deals there are good in restaurants across D.C., suburban Maryland and Virginia.
Those offers are happening alongside the free meals and beverages that many D.C. area restaurants are offering to federal workers affected by the shutdown.
On Monday, Jose Andres, the Washington chef who has led a series of emergency assistance efforts, said his World Central Kitchen is opening a resource center for furloughed federal workers.
The operation will provide groceries, diapers, pet food and other types of support. That is in addition to the meals that World Central Kitchen is providing for D.C. workers.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelinemaynard/2019/01/22/cinnamon-shortbread-latte-nacho-fries-and-restaurant-week-try-to-lure-january-diners/ 2019-01-22 16:09:00Z
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