How do you sell Thanksgiving to-go meals and pies?

More households now hand part of Thanksgiving to a restaurant. Popmenu, a restaurant software company, surveyed U.S. consumers on November 16 and 17, 2025. In that survey, 53% planned takeout or delivery for Thanksgiving dinner. That was up from 37% in 2024 and 32% in 2023.

Groceries are cheap by comparison. The American Farm Bureau Federation priced a classic holiday dinner for 10 at $55.18 last year. That is about $5.52 per person. So your meal is not selling food at a discount. It sells a day off from cooking.

For a small group, the work fits into slow days. Pre-orders tell you the count before you buy. Pickup happens Tuesday and Wednesday, before the holiday itself. Plan it with the rest of your season, as in when to start holiday marketing.

If you run a franchise, ask before you print anything. Read your franchise agreement and operations manual first. Look for rules on menu items, suppliers, pricing and local ads.

Get the answer by email, so nobody has to remember it in November. Running several locations of your own brand? Start with the one or two stores that have the most oven space.

Keep the menu short. Two or three bundles cover most households. Kitchens near Daytona Beach, Florida, sold bundles like these last year.

Most bundles on that list follow one pattern. There is one main, a fixed number of sides and often a pie. Customers choose inside the bundle, not from the whole menu. That keeps your prep counts predictable.

Turkey still leads. Popmenu found 84% planned to serve turkey, followed by ham at 46%. Offer one other main as well. The Daytona kitchens offered ham, salmon, lasagna and a vegetarian main.

Pies are the easiest add-on. They bake ahead and need no reheating. Sell them two ways. Add one to any bundle at checkout, and sell them alone for people cooking at home.

Home cooks are trimming dessert. Popmenu found 39% planned to cut back on sides and desserts. And 23% said they would drop pumpkin pie to save money. A ready pie at a fair price can win some of them back. On the Daytona list, one kitchen charged $15 a pie. A bakery charged $25 for a pumpkin pie.

Price per household, not per plate. Start from food cost. Then add every cost the holiday creates.

Then check your number against the market. A Daytona-area resort charged $90 for two, plus $45 for each extra serving. The bundles in the table above ran from $55 to $225.

Customers are watching totals. Popmenu found 59% planned to spend less on Thanksgiving dinner than the year before. A family bundle under their expected spend is an easier yes. For setting a promotion budget around it, see what share of sales to spend on marketing.

Thanksgiving falls on the fourth Thursday of November. Work back from that day.

That deadline matches what local kitchens did. On the Daytona list, deadlines ran from the Wednesday of the week before to the Monday of Thanksgiving week. A Seattle parenting magazine told families to expect “limited quantities, staggered pick-up times, and order-by deadlines that vary widely.” Late deciders are real, too. Popmenu’s survey ran less than two weeks before the holiday. Keep à la carte sides and pies open a few days past the bundle deadline if your kitchen can take them.

Set the cap from your tightest bottleneck. That is usually oven space, cold storage or packing hands. Count how many bundles each can handle on prep day. The smallest number is your cap.

Expect to sell out if you cap honestly. In November 2020, a Minneapolis restaurant with two locations sold out quickly. It then had 500 pre-order bundles to prep. A local grocery chain sold out after more than 3,600 orders. A sold-out post is good news. Missed pickup times are not. Post it the day you hit the cap, and name the date Christmas orders open.

Give every order a time. Customers pick a slot when they pay. Local sellers used windows like 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the Wednesday, or 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. over two days.

Keep slots short, such as fifteen minutes, with a fixed number of orders in each. Then one late customer does not back up the next slot.

Cold is easier for most kitchens. Several Daytona sellers handed food out chilled with heating directions. The paper’s listing for one caterer read: “Items will be packed cold with reheat instructions.”

Put a reheating card in every bag. USDA food safety guidance says to reheat to 165 degrees F and bring gravy to a rolling boil. It also says to refrigerate cold food as soon as you get home, always within 2 hours.

Sell the deadline, not just the dinner. Announce the menu the day orders open, then repeat the order-by date until you sell out.

A creator video helps most in the first week, while there is time to order. CreatoRain, which publishes this guide, makes done-for-you creator videos for restaurant chains and franchises. It costs $300 a video, creator pay included.

Take ten minutes on Friday, while the week is fresh.

Compare those numbers with your cap. Sold out within days? Raise the cap next year, or add a second kitchen. Pickup ran late? Put fewer orders in each slot. Keep the order form and the reheating card, so next year starts from a copy.

Then reuse the setup for Christmas. The menu changes. The deadline, cap and pickup slots carry over. To pay for the push, see how to set up Google Ads for one location.