November 2005 Article

Getting Around Dine-Arounds
A primer and advice from those who arrange them

You are in a city known for its broad range of fine restaurants. Your guests are eager to sample the fare. What is more natural than a Dine-Around? Several restaurants are reserved for the evening. A menu is selected. Guests sign up in advance for the restaurant of their choice. Transportation is arranged. And voila! A Dine-Around is done.

Wait, it isn’t quite that simple, is it? Arranging Dine-Arounds is not for amateurs or the faint-hearted. It takes a local professional to organize a successful Dine-Around evening…or another sort of dining experience that may better suit your needs.

Executives from DMCs in several American cities known for their great restaurants offer these answers to Dine-Around questions.

First, what is a Dine-Around?
A Dine-Around is when you split a group into smaller clusters and each one goes to a different restaurant on the same evening. Generally Dine-Arounds are designed to give guests a “public” dining experience within the restaurant proper. A typical group would be up to 20 people, often seated at several tables, with no less than 6 at a table.

How common are Dine-Arounds?
Dine-Arounds are requested in 20 to 50% of the programs they are involved with, our experts report.

What services does a DMC provide for a Dine-Around?
A DMC can
• select the restaurants
• make reservations
• choose the menu
• pre-select wines and/or pair wines with each course
• handle tips and payment
• arrange transport
• provide a staff person on site
• plan seating configurations
• select the tables and private/semi-private areas where guests will dine.

Jaclyn Bernstein, president, Empire Force Events, New York, says additional niceties that a DMC might oversee could include printing a menu with the company’s logo on it, seeing that VIP drink and food preferences are known by the servers ahead of time, and providing special centerpieces for the tables

Sometimes a DMC is asked to simply make the reservations and provide transportation. Jaclyn cautions against that saying that a DMC’s ongoing relationship with a restaurant helps guarantee superior service for guests. “And, we know where the bad tables are,” she adds. Tables her clients never see.

Is there one best way to handle the food? Preset menu? Limited choice? Order off the regular menu? Does it depend on the size and nature of the group?

Respondents agreed that a limited choice pre-set menu was the most efficient and trouble free. They recommend a minimum of three choices.

Andy Gladstone, president, Show Me Arizona, says restaurants in his area will do a la carte for up to 16 people. However, he cautions “if it’s pure a la carte, some people may order 4 courses, others only 2…. Thus creating disjointed service and perhaps an uncomfortable situation at the tables.”

Is payment always arranged in advance, versus having the diners pay?
All agreed that arranging payment in advance and having the DMC take care of it is the most efficient way.

If the customer wants to handle the bill, how can it be done smoothly?
“Have one person identified within the group as the host.” Suggests Jim Mason, director of operations and sales, Fun Factory Events - San Antonio, “and instruct the lead waiter/waitress to ensure that he/she is presented with the bill at the end of the evening.”

Jaclyn Bernstein cites a Dine-Around where the client wanted to pay the bill at the restaurant as a means of impressing the diners and reinforcing the fact that they were his guests. The restaurant was told to present the bill to him at the end of the dinner and be sure to have the tip already included. “You wouldn’t want the executive to be sitting there in front of his guests struggling to calculate a tip,” Jaclyn explained.

When/how do people register for a Dine-Around?
“It’s done every way imaginable. Some clients will assign people to the restaurant; some will publish the menus in advance so sign-ups are done prior to arrival. Most however, are done on-site upon arrival to the hotel,” Andy Gladstone explains.

“No matter how well you plan, they always change their minds, ” Jim Mason of Fun Factory warns. “Mary wants to go with her friend from CA and Joey wants his friends from New Orleans to go with him.” This causes a real challenge, he continues, when you end up with 30 guests but 25 seats in the restaurant.

Do you always transport people to Dine- Arounds?
“Most often we arrange transportation,” Ellen Burnett, president, Best of Boston, said “but last week we arranged most restaurants within walking distance and the attendees were walked by a staff member to their designated location.” In general the DMCs agreed providing motorcoach or limousine transportation is best.

What are the biggest challenges of Dine-Arounds and possible solutions?

Challenge:
• Arranging restaurants that are equal in stature and offerings
• Differing guest experiences shared the next day where diners from one restaurant wish they had gone to a different one

Solution: Select restaurants as part of a theme and emphasize in advance what makes the restaurant special more than the specific menu, suggests Jaclyn Bernstein. Possible themes she mentioned include: the newest restaurants and chefs in town, the most interesting architecture, and rooms with a view on the waterfront.

Challenge:
• Last-minute changes including no shows and extra guests

Solution: Preassigning guests to a particular restaurant can help avoid problems with no shows or extra shows. Jaclyn suggests an appealing way to do this is to deliver personal invitations and menus to the guests’ hotel rooms the night before the dinner.

Challenge:
• Running late

Solution: Providing transportation and limiting the menu can help insure time doesn’t get far out of sync.

What do you need from the meeting planner in order to arrange smooth and successful Dine-Arounds?

The consensus here was the need for the planner to control last minute changes, making clear to diners that restaurant capacities are firm.

Ellen Burnett and Jaclyn Bernstein also said planners need to be realistic about what they can expect from their budget.

Are there alternatives to Dine-Arounds that offer a similar experience with fewer problems?

"I'll do the same concept in private locations around the River Walk,” Jim Mason explains. “The difference is I'm not occupying space in the restaurants. I’m using private dining spaces/rooms owned by various restaurants.” That way guests enjoy the local food with a little more leeway in timing and numbers.

Jaclyn suggests you could do an evening that’s 50/50 public and private dining to best meet a client’s needs. She also says group dining is always a possibility. Placing 100 people in one location is considerably simpler than arranging for five groups of 20 to dine in five different locations.

How about other creative dining approaches?

Block Party:
Jim Mason describes one he arranged -- “We bought out the entire South Bank of the River Walk to include Hard Rock Cafe, Howl at the Moon, Zwig's Martini Bar and an entire surface parking lot with a free standing tent with a band. We had a catered tent and food stations in all the clubs.”

Progressive Dinner:
Guests are once again divided into groups and they have different courses in different restaurants. “If the group is larger than 20, progressive dinners can be difficult. If done early enough in the evening, they are easier to pull off, “ Jim Mason suggests.

As with any gathering, Dine-Arounds run more smoothly when kept as simple as possible. The key in arranging any sort of dinner during an event is to explain to your DMC what you are trying to accomplish. Together you can work out a dining experience that leaves your guests happy and your event a success.

Contributing their thoughts were: Ellen Burnett, president, The Best of Boston, Ltd.; Jaclyn Bernstein, DMCP, president & partner, Empire Force Events; Andy Gladstone, president, Show Me Arizona; Michael Lyons, president, GEP Philadelphia; and Jim Mason, sales and operations manager, Fun Factory Events, San Antonio