What a restaurant holiday hours message should say
A holiday hours message has one job: stop a guest from showing up to a locked door, or from assuming you are closed when you are open. The best ones are boring in the best way. They state the date, the exact hours (or the closure), and one action the guest can take right now.
A complete holiday hours message answers three questions in the first line:
- Which day? Name the holiday and the date, not just “the holidays.”
- What are the hours? Give the open and close time, or say plainly that you are closed.
- What should I do? Reserve, join the waitlist, order ahead, or just “see you then.”
Everything after that is flavor. The mistake operators make is burying the times under a paragraph of warm wishes. On a phone screen, the guest sees the greeting, gets bored, and calls the host stand anyway, which is exactly the call you were trying to prevent.
The timing that actually works
Send your first holiday hours notice 5 to 7 days out. That is far enough ahead that a guest can change a plan, close enough that they will not forget. For closures or sharply reduced hours, add a same-day reminder the morning of the holiday. People genuinely forget that their neighborhood spot is closed on Christmas Day until they are standing outside in the cold.
A practical cadence for a major holiday:
- Seven days out: the full notice by email, with the menu and a reservation or waitlist link.
- Two days out: a short SMS or WhatsApp reminder with just the date and hours.
- Morning of (closures or odd hours only): a one-line “heads up, we close at 3pm today” alert.
Do not over-send. Three touches across a week is fine; a daily countdown will burn through your opt-in list and your message allowance. If you are on the Basic plan with 500 messages a month, a careless holiday blast can eat most of it in an afternoon.
SMS holiday hours message examples
Keep SMS under 160 characters so it sends as one segment. Lead with your name so the guest knows who is texting before they read a word.
Closed for the day:
“Marlowe’s: We’re closed Thanksgiving Thu Nov 27 so our team can be with family. Back Fri Nov 28 at 5pm. Happy Thanksgiving!”
Early close:
“Bar Vesta: Heads up, we close at 4pm today (Dec 24). Open regular hours Dec 26. Reply STOP to opt out.”
Open special hours, walk-ins welcome:
“Pho Linh: Open New Year’s Day 11am-8pm. Walk-ins welcome, or join the line from your phone: [link]”
Holiday with reservations:
“Trattoria Sera: Valentine’s Day seatings 5-9pm are filling up. Book your table: [link]”
Notice the opt-out language (“Reply STOP”) on the marketing-flavored examples. A pure operational alert to an opted-in guest is lower risk, but adding a clear opt-out keeps you on the right side of carrier rules and guest trust.
WhatsApp holiday hours message examples
WhatsApp has no real length limit and renders images and formatting, so it is the right channel for richer holiday messages, especially for guests in Brazil, Mexico, Spain and the wider LatAm market where WhatsApp is the default. If you are weighing channels, our SMS vs WhatsApp guest messaging breakdown covers the tradeoffs.
Festive closure:
“Hi from Casa Verde! We’ll be closed Dec 25 and 26 for the holidays and reopen Dec 27 at noon. Thank you for a wonderful year. We can’t wait to cook for you again. Warmest wishes from the whole team.”
Special menu with hours:
“Happy holidays from Olive & Ash! On New Year’s Eve we’re open 5pm to 1am with a special 5-course tasting menu. Tables are limited and going fast. Reply here or tap to reserve: [link]”
WhatsApp supports conversations, but the selected tool must show replies to the person who will act on them. StoveOps does not surface inbound WhatsApp replies in its host queue, so include another staffed route for holiday questions.
Email holiday hours message examples
Email is where the full picture lives: every holiday in the season, the special menus, the reservation links, the gift-card pitch. Put the dates and hours near the top in a short list so a skimmer gets the answer without scrolling.
Subject line: “Our holiday hours (and a few special menus)”
Body opening:
“Hi [first name], here’s when we’re open over the holidays so you can plan ahead:
- Dec 24 (Christmas Eve): 11am-4pm
- Dec 25 (Christmas Day): Closed
- Dec 31 (New Year’s Eve): 5pm-1am, special tasting menu
- Jan 1 (New Year’s Day): Closed
Reserve a table or join the waitlist anytime from your phone.”
End every marketing email with a working unsubscribe link. It is required, and it protects your sender reputation so your genuinely useful messages keep landing in the inbox.
How to distribute holiday updates with a tracked link
A waitlist sign-up supports service notices about that visit; it does not automatically authorize a holiday campaign. Check each recipient’s permission before using an external SMS, WhatsApp or email sender. StoveOps can create a campaign link with UTM tags when the feature is available on your plan. Its reporting shows aggregate page visits and waitlist joins attributed to that link, not opens or clicks by recipient. Sending, scheduling and opt-outs belong in the external tool.
For multiple locations, make a separate link and hours message for each store. Check the destination and the selected recipients before sending.
Checklist before the holiday rush
- Write SMS, WhatsApp and email versions with the same date, local hours and one action. Test the final SMS with real names and links, since placeholders and encoding affect segments.
- Create and open the tracked link on a phone. Confirm it reaches the right location.
- In the external sender, choose recipients with appropriate permission, schedule the message and test its opt-out path.
- Match the wording on your website, Google Business Profile and social channels.
- Staff the contact route named in the message and review aggregate link visits and waitlist joins after the send.
Holiday hours mistakes that cost you covers
A few patterns turn a routine notice into lost revenue and annoyed guests:
- Forgetting Google Business Profile. Most diners check Google before they check their texts. If your holiday hours are wrong there, the message you texted does not save you. Update Google first, then send.
- Vague language. “Modified holiday hours” tells a guest nothing. State the numbers.
- Sending to a non-consented list. Texting people who never opted in is the fastest way to get reported and to lose carrier deliverability for everyone on your list.
- No plan for the rush after a closure. The day you reopen after a holiday is often slammed. A digital waitlist keeps the door calm when everyone shows up at once. It also helps with the no-show problem on big reservation nights like New Year’s Eve.
When a different tool fits better
If prepaid ticketed experiences or diner discovery drive holiday demand, evaluate a booking platform or marketplace for that job. StoveOps fits the owned waitlist and tracked-link part of the workflow; use a separate sender for holiday campaigns. It runs beside your POS.
Get your holiday messages out the door
Publish exact hours on your site and Google Business Profile first. Use the seven-day trial to test QR join and outbound table-ready updates during a real service. For holiday outreach, create a tracked link if your plan includes campaigns, then distribute it through an external tool with the right permission and a staffed contact route. Review aggregate page visits and waitlist joins instead of recipient open or click counts.