Super Bowl Sunday is big for restaurants and sports bars. The rooms are full and the day is long. So the instinct is to add.
Promos. Playlists. Screen changes. Specials. Signage. Extra ideas meant to stand out.
When the room is full and attention is already locked in, the job might be simpler than it feels. Keep the experience clear. Reduce friction. Let the game do the work.
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Treating Super Bowl Sunday Like a Showcase
A lot of venues treat it like a chance to layer things in.
None of that is wrong on paper but on the floor, it can add friction.
Guests aren’t there to explore. Staff don’t have time to explain. Every extra change becomes one more thing to manage over a ten-hour shift.
This isn’t a normal event. It’s a high-volume day where clarity and repetition do more work than novelty.
The goal isn’t to add ideas. It’s to drive higher checks without adding work — and that comes from removing variables, not introducing new ones.
Simplify the Menu, Not the Offering
This isn’t really about having fewer items on the menu. It’s about having fewer decisions in the room.
On a packed day, people don’t browse. They look for the fastest path to ordering. What they see first, and what’s easiest to understand, tends to win. Familiar items move. Clear combinations land without explanation. Anything that requires a second look usually gets skipped.
That’s why visibility matters more than variety. If your best-selling beer, cocktail, or food item isn’t the most obvious thing in the room, guests hesitate and staff ends up filling the gap. Over the course of the day, those small pauses add up.
This is where screens quietly earn their place. Not by being clever or flashy, but by keeping the ordering path clear and predictable when the room is at its busiest.
If you want a deeper breakdown on how screens actually drive this behavior, this still applies:
Lock Decisions Before Doors Open
By the time the first guest walks in, you want to already know what the room looks like: which screens are showing what, which promos are rolling, what audio levels are locked in, and how staff will answer the same handful of questions that come up over and over.
Those decisions don’t get easier once the pressure is on. They get rushed, inconsistent, and expensive in staff energy.
Every change creates an interruption.
A guest asks a question.
A bartender explains.
A server clarifies.
A manager gets pulled in.
Scale that across a full room and a four-hour game and the cost becomes obvious. The smoothest Super Bowl shifts feel almost boring by design — because nothing needs to be re-explained.
That’s exactly why this prep framework exists: to get the basics decided early and out of the way so the day can run on its own rhythm.
Bigger Checks Come From Visibility
The fastest way to increase check size on Super Bowl Sunday isn’t necessarily upselling directly. It’s reminding people what’s already available. That food is coming out of the kitchen. That pitchers exist. That sharing makes sense. That there’s a natural moment to order again before halftime.
Screens do this better than staff on a day like this.
So, here’s the real question.
What could you remove from Super Bowl Sunday that would make the day easier to run and more profitable at the same time?
