Key points
- Estimate each date from your own sales records: divide last year's holiday sales by an ordinary Saturday's, then apply that multiplier to this year. In the example, 120 cups × 1.5 = 180 milk coffees, or 27 liters of UHT milk.
- Ask each supplier when they close and when the last and first deliveries will be. Order long-life items early within your storage space, coffee beans only as needed, and agree on delivery dates for fresh items now.
- Open leave requests with a deadline and give Christmas off first to staff who celebrate it. Build the busiest days' shifts from your per-date estimates, train extra hands before the rush, and post your holiday hours, including special hours on your Google Business Profile.
- In Kazeer, ingredient stock goes down automatically with each sale and Kazeer AI sends low-stock alerts to the owner and store admins. Still check against a physical count, because ingredients thrown out aren't counted.
Picture this: it's 26 December, seven in the evening. The cafe has been full since the afternoon, the line reaches the door, and your barista says there are two cartons of milk left. Your milk supplier is closed until early January, and two of your staff have gone back to their hometowns.
The Christmas and New Year holidays are about eight weeks away. That's enough time to get your stock, staff, menu, and opening hours ready, as long as you start this week. Every number in this article is an example.
Estimate how busy each day will be
If you have sales records from the end of last year, look at each day from 24 December to 1 January. Divide each holiday's sales by the sales of an ordinary Saturday in November last year. The result is your multiplier for this year. Watch the weekday too: last year 25 December and 1 January fell on a Thursday, and this year they fall on a Friday, so the holidays run into the weekend.
If you don't have last year's records, use the sales from your busiest Saturday or Sunday in the past two months as your estimate for the busiest holiday day, then update it after the first two or three days of the holidays.
The holidays don't always make an outlet busier. An outlet near a campus or offices may get quieter as many people go back to their hometowns, while one in a tourist area may get much busier.
Example: Last year, an ordinary Saturday in November sold 100 milk coffees, and the busiest holiday day sold 150. The multiplier is 150 ÷ 100 = 1.5. This year an ordinary Saturday sells 120, so the estimate for the busiest day is 120 × 1.5 = 180 cups.
| Worked example | Ordinary Saturday | Busiest day |
|---|
| Milk coffees sold | 120 cups | 180 cups |
| UHT milk, 150 ml per cup | 18 liters | 27 liters |
Use your own recipe amounts, and work out each holiday separately, because 25 and 31 December can follow different patterns. Those per-date estimates are what you base your stock, staff schedule, and cash float on. How to read your sales records day by day is in the guide to the daily sales report.
Stock and supplier schedules
Suppliers take holidays too. This week, ask each supplier which dates they close, when the last delivery before the holidays and the first one after will arrive, and what the order cut-off is on those days. Write the answers on one calendar.
Then split your ingredients into two groups:
- Long-life items, such as UHT milk, syrups, sugar, cups, and lids. Order early to cover the days your supplier is closed, and make sure the extra stock gets used before it expires. For coffee beans, ask your roaster about roast dates and order only what you need, because the flavor fades a few weeks after roasting.
- Fresh items, such as fresh milk, bread, vegetables, and meat, which won't keep for weeks. Agree on their delivery dates with your supplier now.
Adjust your minimums too. In the guide to daily ingredient stock checks, the minimum is your highest daily usage multiplied by the delivery time. Over the holidays, use the usage from your busiest-day estimate, and count the delivery time up to the first delivery after your supplier reopens.
Example: Your milk supplier closes, so the next delivery arrives 3 days after the last one. At an estimated 27 liters a day, you need 27 × 3 = 81 liters of UHT milk after the last delivery, or 81 one-liter cartons.
Eighty-one cartons take up room, so check your shelves, storeroom, fridges, and freezer before you order. Arrange your stock so whatever expires first gets used first, as in the FIFO and FEFO guide. Add gas, drinking water jugs, ice, receipt paper, and takeaway bags to the list as well. For the ingredients your best sellers need, line up a backup supplier as in the guide to choosing suppliers.
Leave and peak-day shifts
Your staff will likely want time off on the same dates as your customers. Open leave requests now with a deadline, such as the end of November, then announce your decisions in early December, so staff have time to plan their trips home.
If not everyone can have time off, give Christmas off first to staff who celebrate it, then use the same rotation for everyone: whoever is off for Christmas works over New Year, or the other way round. Write down this year's rotation for next year.
Build the schedule for the busiest days from your per-date estimates: add people at the peak hours, and keep one backup person you can call if someone gets sick. How to overlap shifts around the rush is in the guide to shift schedules.
If you need day workers or part-timers, find them now and train them before the rush. Bringing out orders and clearing tables are quick to learn, so leave the POS to experienced staff. If an extra hand has to work as a cashier, start the plan for training a new cashier at least two weeks before the holidays.
Note: Overtime, holiday pay, and leave entitlements follow the employment rules that apply to you and your agreements with your staff. Check those rules before you announce the schedule.
Seasonal menu and pre-orders
Every year-end special adds ingredients to stock and steps for the kitchen to learn. Keep it to two or three items made with ingredients already on your shelves. On the busiest days, take slow-to-make items off the menu for a while so orders go out faster.
For families and groups, a bundle price speeds up ordering, such as four drinks and two snacks for one price. On days that are sure to be busy, a big discount only cuts the gross profit you make from customers who would have come anyway, so keep the discount small or skip it. Before you set the price, work out the bundle's gross profit using COGS (cost of goods sold), as in the article on slow-hour promotions.
Bakeries and cake shops can open pre-orders for jars of cookies (kue kering) or hampers, with two limits. The cut-off date is the last day that still leaves enough time to buy ingredients from your suppliers and bake before the pickup dates. Work out the maximum from your production capacity, after taking out what you need for daily sales. Say your kitchen can make 40 jars a day, 10 of them go to the display case, and there are 10 production days until the last pickup date, so you can take at most 30 × 10 = 300 jars of pre-orders. Orders picked up earlier can only use the production days before their pickup date, so check capacity for each pickup date too. Close pre-orders as soon as you reach either limit. Record each order with the name, WhatsApp number, what was ordered, the pickup date, and whether the down payment or full payment is in.
Opening hours, reservations, and cash
Decide your hours for each holiday, including the days you close and the days you stay open longer, such as the evening of 31 December. Post them everywhere customers look: special hours on your Google Business Profile, Instagram, your WhatsApp status, and a sign on the door. How to do it is in the guide to your Google Business Profile.
Set reservation rules for the busiest days before the first reservation comes in, especially for large groups who should choose their menu ahead, as in the article on table reservations.
Make up your starting float with more small notes for the busiest days, and cash up at every shift change so any difference shows up per shift. A few times a day, move some of the money from the drawer to a safe place, have two people count it and write it down, then add that amount back into the count at the cash-up. Check your bank's opening hours over the holidays too, to decide when to deposit. The cash-up steps are in the guide to the daily cash-up.
Where Kazeer helps
If you use Kazeer, some of this preparation happens in the same app you take orders with:
- Today's sales report updates itself and your sales records list the items sold, so note the cups sold each Saturday on the day itself.
- Ingredient stock goes down automatically with each sale, and after a transaction Kazeer AI sends a low-stock or out-of-stock alert to the owner and store admins. The alert helps between your daily counts, but ingredients thrown out aren't counted, so still check it against a physical count.
- If you have more than one outlet, you can move items to the outlet that's short before you make a rush buy.
- You set bundle prices and promo prices in Kazeer's promo feature.
- Kazeer shows totals per payment method and per cashier shift, to compare against at the cash-up.
- Extra hands can get their own login, with access set to their task and outlet.
The eight-week plan and after the holidays
- This week: estimate each day, ask your suppliers about their holiday schedules, open leave requests, and start looking for extra hands.
- End of November: settle the seasonal menu and bundle prices, then open pre-orders.
- Early December: announce leave decisions and your holiday hours, train your extra hands, and set your reservation rules.
- Mid-December: order long-life items, post the shift schedule, and close pre-orders.
- During the holidays: count stock every day and cash up at every shift change.
In the first week of January, compare each day's estimate with what you actually sold, note which ingredients ran out first or were left over, and ask your staff at what hours they were most stretched. Keep those notes with your supplier calendar, so next year's preparation starts from your own numbers.