10+ Cool Tips on How to Attract College Students to Your Restaurant

If you are looking for tips on how to attract college students to your restaurant today you are in the right place. College students tend to eat out a lot and can be a great revenue source for your restaurant. They also tend to hang out in groups and if you treat them well they will tell their friends and come back. 

In order to attract college students to your restaurant you need to create a comfortable environment and then lure them in with social media influencers, ads in college newspapers, fliers, special events etc. Have Free Wi-Fi,  student discounts, birthday clubs, and more to keep them coming back. 

1 – Create a Comfortable Environment 

If you want to bring in  college students to your restaurant, you should create a comfortable dining experience for them. This will make them feel welcome so that they’ll give you a great review and come back again.

Make sure the restaurant is clean and well-maintained.

Have ample and comfortable seating

Fast, friendly, high energy service is key!

Have good lighting

Keep your restrooms squeaky clean and well stocked

Put a “Welcome Oxford Students!” or “We Support Oxford U!” sign in the window. 

2 – How to Attract College Students To Your Restaurant With Free Wi-Fi

A great way to bring in college students to your restaurant today is to have free Wi-Fi. Many of them rely on their laptops and smartphones for most of their work. As a result, they are constantly searching for Wi-Fi to use when they are out and about. If you can provide them with free Wi-Fi, they will be more likely to visit your restaurant.

3 – Guerilla Marketing With Fliers (Free Sex!) 

True Story  …  When I was in college we used to have fraternity parties once a month. We usually had them in the student union building and the only marketing we did was word of mouth. We would usually get about 75 – 100 guests. 

One time we had the option of weekend access to a much larger off campus venue. We knew that if we only got our usual 100 or so guests the room would look empty and that would be embarrassing for the fraternity.

So I designed a flier …

We put the fliers all over campus. As I was putting them up I saw people running over to read them. The next day we got a call from the college administration office telling us that our flier was causing quite a stir and we had to take it down. 

The party was in 2 days and we were in a panic.  We considered cancelling it because we thought it would be a huge failure and damage our brand. 

The night of the party we didn’t we didn’t get our usual 75 – 10 guests  .. we got close to 1000! Even though the flier was only up for about 24 hours it had gotten  ton of attention and brought us a lot of party guests.

4 – Student Discounts

Let’s face it.  Most  college students are broke. When you combine rising tuition fees and expensive books with minimum wage jobs there’s not a lot of money left for eating out.  

Make it easier for them. You can offer a price break for people that show a local university ID card. You can also offer a  meal plan to get them to come in on a regular basis. You can offer specials and free meals for frequent diners and track everything with a good Restaurant POS System. 

5 – Connect With Student Influencers

Influencer marketing is a great advertising method to get attention in your business market. This is where you connect with local college students and get them to promote your restaurant on their social media channels.

Look for local students that are posting about the school. You can find them by going to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or other sites and doing a search. Offer them a free meal or other perks to come to your restaurant. If you give them a good experience they will share it with their followers.  

6 – Social Media for Restaurants 

Using other people’s social media influence is great. Developing your own is even better. Instagram, Facebook and Twitter are some of the most popular mediums for restaurants to tell their story with great content.  Youtube and Tiktok are great for Viral videos. We recommend picking a couple of platforms and learning them. And don’t forget to respond to your online reviews!  

You can put your menu online. It will give you the opportunity to showcase your dining options. You can put up appetizing photos of your best dishes on Instagram and Facebook. Make sure to use hashtags so locals can find you. Build your brand by advertising your social media platforms at your restaurant. 

You can also make a video of your restaurant and put it on your social media. This can help you to get more customers. Consistency is key! If you’re going to be active on social media then BE ACTIVE! Don’t just post content a few times and then stop. If you don’t have the time or energy to learn how to handle your social media yourself you can ask one  of your employees to do it or outsource to an agency.

7 – Online Ordering 

College students love online ordering to save time. Since the pandemic it’s become even more popular. While the pandemic forced some businesses to close and limit their customers, it has also given them an opportunity to focus on pickup and delivery.  (You can also use a delivery service like Ubereats or Doordash.)

Internet ordering makes it easy for people to order your restaurant’s food at any time of day. A good Restaurant Point of Sale System will integrate with your website. Students can browse your menu online, place their order and pay with a credit card. The order will print on your kitchen printer and show up inside your POS which reduces the need for them to call your restaurant.  

8 – Free Samples 

Have you ever been to a food court at the mall on the weekend and they were giving out free samples? Did you try the sample? Did you then go on to purchase more? I bet you answered yes to those 3 questions, I know I did!

Free samples work! Why not pick your tastiest dish and have someone stand outside handing out little bite size pieces during lunch time? They can also hand out coupons as well.  

You can also give free samples to fraternities, sororities and other student groups. Put together a sampler of some of your most popular dishes and drop it off at the  local frat house. Include some irresistible coupons and be prepared for an influx of new local customers.   

9 – Have a Birthday Club  

Give a free meal to students on their birthday. This can be a great way to get people talking about your restaurant and an inexpensive way to increase your profits. You can use a system like Send Out Cards  to keep track of birthdays and send out birthday greeting cards and postcards quickly and easily.

Now you may be thinking “how can giving away free food increase my profits? Well a couple of ways. First of all it’s a great gesture to increase good will.  But also think about this … do you think somebody is going to come all alone on their birthday to eat at your restaurant? No … a birthday is an event. They will probably bring local friends … with credit cards!   

10 – Build an Email List 

The best way to build a successful college restaurant is to have a strong base of students who love the food and want to come back. A restaurant email list is a great way to engage with these people and let them know about new menu items,  special or events. When they receive an email about a special or a new menu item, they will be more likely to return to your restaurant.

You can use email marketing to send out newsletters, promotions, and deals. You can build an email list using your POS System and / or an email autoresponder service like Aweber,  Getresponse or Constant Contact. 

 11- Have a VIP Text Club 

The VIP text club is a simple and effective way to build and engage with a loyal customer base. The idea behind the VIP text club is to reward student customers for their loyalty with price breaks and specials. In order to make this work, you need to have a database of your customers’ names and numbers.

This list is then used to send friendly marketing messages to your customers on a regular basis. The message can be anything from a reminder of the specials to a notice about a special event.

Jack Bastide is a Restaurant Consultant with a focus on Restaurant Point of Sale technology. Make sure to check out the world famous Restaurant Super Star Restaurant Resources page for a comprehensive offering of hand picked commercial resources and tools to help your restaurant.