# Top 10 Tips to Upsell in Restaurants

> Wondering about how to upsell in a restaurant? Well then you have to the right place. This article got you all.

By Uyi Abraham (Founder and CEO, Vonza). Published 2023-12-06, updated 2025-09-23. Category: Business and creator economy. 2 min read.
Canonical: https://vonza.net/blog/upsell-in-restaurants

Restaurants are among the most competitive businesses, and upselling is among the best methods to boost sales. However, how you upsell to your customers can drive them away, or make them long-term customers.

## Recommendations – Upselling Desserts

Sellers should not make obvious recommendations. For instance, if it is a dinner reservation, you should not ask if they would like an appetizer. Instead, you can recommend an appetizer or dessert that goes well with a particular meal you want to upsell.

![Recommendations – Upselling Desserts](https://assets.vonza.com/marketing/blog/upsell-in-restaurants/top-10-tips-on-how-to-upsell-in-restaurants.png)

## Allow Staff to Review the Menu

Your staff can help you to taste and review dishes on the menu. They can then recommend the best dishes, and point out the average dishes.

That helps them to upsell the best dishes with confidence. Customers can tell when staff is recommending dishes they know little about.

## Wine Samples – How to Upsell Wine

You can have staff invite customers to taste wines. Customers like it when they get a chance to taste wines before they order.

## Personal Recommendations

Staff should make personal recommendations to customers, instead of repeating the same upsell to all customers.

The exception is when upselling special dishes, such as the “Soup of the Day”. This can work well if you run an [online restaurant](https://vonza.net/store).

## Read the Guest’s Mood

Sometimes, customers aren’t in the best moods for certain foods. For instance, a customer may look like they want to enjoy a calm and relaxing evening, only.

In that case, it is easy to upsell them to the best wine, instead of an exotic dish.

![Read the Guest’s Mood](https://assets.vonza.com/marketing/blog/upsell-in-restaurants/upsell-a-customer.png)

## How to Upsell a Customer – Be Natural

Customers like it when they get honest recommendations.

Therefore, instead of making a random upsell, find out how they are doing and what they planned to have that hour. With that information, you can make upselling match their meal plans.

## How to Upsell in Retail – Project Value

When making an upsell, don’t make the customer feel like they are being made to pay extra for a good time. Instead, let them know the health benefits they are getting from the meal, instead of just the good taste.

## Reward Your Team’s Efforts

As a business owner, your best upsell strategy is to reward your staff’s efforts when they upsell. That can motivate them to apply these upsell strategies in your restaurant more creatively.

## Strategic Recommendations

When recommending items, don’t recommend just one item. Instead, have two or three items they can choose, and let your preferred upsell item be the last on the list. That works quite well because people don’t have the mental pressure that comes with making decisions.

## Gift Cards and Promotions

You can use gift cards and promotions to upsell your preferred meals. And you use them to get customer contacts, for future invites to special meals.

You can also post promotions regularly on your restaurant’s [website](https://vonza.net/website-builder) to make online sales, and use a [sales funnel](https://vonza.net/sales-funnel).

## Conclusion

Cross-selling and upselling techniques in restaurants may be different. But if done right, they can help to increase sales. Vonza online marketing tools can grow your restaurant’s online sales greatly, check out the [30-day free trial](https://vonza.net/pricing), and sign up today.