Holiday Gift Cards for Restaurants: A Q4 Plan

Nearly half of restaurant gift card sales happen in the last two months of the year, and close to 40% of redemptions land in the first quarter. So the best holiday gift card strategy for restaurants starts with a question most plans skip: which week in January do you want those guests to walk in? Pick the week first. Then build the offer backwards from it.

That's the whole idea of this plan. A holiday gift card is a January booking that happens to get paid for in December. Sell it like a gift, but design it like a reservation.

Why does the holiday window matter this much?

Because the buying is concentrated and so is the coming back. The figures above are American (Credit Suisse data, reported by Nation's Restaurant News), and no one publishes a Canadian equivalent for restaurants. The shape matches what Canadian shoppers say, though. In the 2025 Retail Council of Canada and Leger survey of more than 2,500 adults, 47% planned to buy gift cards for the holidays, up from 42% the year before, out of an average gift budget of $975.

Restaurants get a real share of that. A US study cited by TouchBistro found holiday shoppers bought three to four gift cards each in 2024, and 30% of those cards were for restaurants.

Here's the part worth sitting with. The money arrives in your busiest month and the guests arrive in your quietest one. That's a gift, and it's also a trap, which we'll get to.

If you don't sell gift cards yet, the rules, the tax treatment and the setup are in our guide to restaurant gift cards in Canada. This article is the seasonal plan that sits on top of it.

What should the holiday offer be?

Full-price gift cards, plus a bonus card with dates on it. For a 40-seat room where dinner for two runs about $110 before tax:

Buy $100 in gift cards between November 16 and December 24, get a $20 bonus card. The bonus card is good for dine-in from January 4 to March 14.

Three decisions are hiding in that sentence.

The gift card stays at full price. The buyer pays $100 and the recipient gets $100. No "$100 for $80." A discount gives away a fifth of your cash on day one and tells you nothing about when anyone will show up.

The bonus card goes to the buyer. They're already a fan. The person who gets the gift is new. One sale, two visits, two different guests.

The dates do the work. January 4 is the first Monday after New Year's. March 14 is ten weeks later, about when patios and spring menus start pulling people back out on their own. Shift the window to fit your own slow stretch. A ski-town room will want different weeks than a downtown lunch spot.

And set your amounts to match a real meal. With tax and tip, that $110 dinner lands near $150. Offer $50, $100 and $150, and make $100 the button that's already selected online.

Can a bonus card expire when a gift card can't?

Usually yes, because it's a different thing in law. A gift card someone paid for can't expire in any province. A bonus card is a promotional card that nobody paid for, and the rules treat it differently:

Province	Paid gift card	Free bonus card
Ontario	No expiry date allowed on most retail gift cards	The ban is written for cards a customer buys. State every condition "in clear and visible writing".
Quebec	No expiry date, no time limit	The Office de la protection du consommateur's guide for merchants treats a card the consumer didn't pay for as outside the prepaid card rules.
British Columbia	No expiry date	The regulation allows an expiry date on a card issued for a promotional purpose to someone who gave nothing of value for it.
Alberta	No expiry date	Promotional cards are not covered by the gift card regulation.

Make the difference obvious to the guest. Print "Bonus card" on it, never "Gift card." Print the dates, "dine-in only," "no cash value" and "one per table" right on the card. Never sell one. And read your province's page before you print, because this is our reading of consumer rules and not legal advice.

One more reason to skip the discounted gift card: in BC, a card bought for less than its face value is one of the cases where an expiry date is permitted. That muddies a promise your guests think is simple.

What does the week-by-week plan look like?

Start in October. The selling window is shorter than it feels.

When (2026)	What to do
By October 31	Gift cards live online and tested at the till. Bonus cards printed. Terms written. On Square Canada, digital cards are free to set up and plastic starts at 66 cents a card, with no monthly fee and a 2.5% fee when a card is loaded.
November 2 to 13	Email three or four nearby offices about staff gifts (more below). Add a gift card link to your site menu, your Google profile and your booking confirmation.
November 16	Offer opens. One email to your list, one post, a card in every cheque presenter.
November 27 to 30	Black Friday to Cyber Monday. In the same Retail Council survey, 53% of Canadians called Black Friday the most important shopping moment of the season. Send your second email here.
December 1 to 19	Staff ask at every table that had a good night: "We have gift cards if you still have people on your list." Holiday party hosts get asked twice.
December 20 to 24	Digital only. "Delivered to their inbox in a minute" is the entire message. This is who you're selling to now: the person who forgot.
December 26 to January 3	Nothing. Count what you sold and move the holdback (next section).
January 4 to March 14	Bonus cards are live. Count them weekly. Get an email address from every new guest who pays with a gift card.

Two emails and a few posts is plenty. If you're building the list from scratch, our email marketing basics covers consent under Canada's anti-spam law, and a single text to opted-in regulars on December 22 follows the same rules as any other SMS campaign.

Who buys ten cards at once?

Employers. And Canadian tax policy quietly helps you here.

Under the Canada Revenue Agency's policy, a gift card counts as a non-cash gift when it comes with money already on it, can only be used at a single retailer or a group of retailers named on the card, and has terms that clearly state it can't be converted into cash. An employer can give each employee non-cash gifts worth up to $500 a year, taxes included, without it becoming a taxable benefit. The employer keeps a simple log of who got what.

A card for your restaurant fits all three conditions if your terms say "not redeemable for cash." So say it, on the card and on your site.

Then make the order easy. A dentist with eight staff, a law office with twelve, the real estate team that books your back table every December: they want one invoice, cards in envelopes, and delivery by December 11. A $100 card each for twelve people is a $1,200 sale and twelve bonus cards for the person who signed off on it. Tell them to confirm the tax side with their own accountant, and leave it there.

How does the money come back in January?

Run the numbers on a modest season. Say you sell $12,000 in gift cards between mid-November and Christmas Eve, all under the offer above.

Line	Number	How it's worked out
Gift cards sold	$12,000	120 units of $100
Bonus cards handed out	120 cards, $2,400 face value	$20 each
Bonus cards used by March 14	72	Our assumption: 60%
Value taken off those bills	$1,440	72 × $20
What that costs you in food	About $460	At a 32% food cost
Paid sales from those 72 tables	$6,480	72 × ($110 − $20)
Gift cards redeemed January to March	About $4,800	40% of $12,000, per the US pattern

Seventy-two extra tables over ten weeks is about seven a week. In February, seven tables is a Tuesday that pays for itself.

Compare the discount route. Selling $12,000 of face value at 20% off costs you $2,400 in cash, up front, with no return date attached. The bonus card costs about $460 in food and comes with a calendar. Fair caveat: if a bonus table would have come in January anyway at full price, that card cost you the full $20. Some will. Most January tables wouldn't have.

Now the trap. That $4,800 of gift card redemptions will ring through your till in winter as sales, but the cash came in before Christmas. If December's deposits went to the equipment repair and the staff party, you'll be cooking in February for money you've already spent.

So our position is simple: hold back your food cost on every card you sell. At 32%, that's $3,840 of the $12,000, moved to a separate account on December 26 and released as cards come back. Don't budget on cards that never get redeemed, either. Some won't be, but a card that can't expire is a debt you owe until someone eats it.

Add one line to the numbers you check weekly from January to March: gift card dollars redeemed, and bonus cards used.

What happens after the gift card is spent?

This is where the season pays off or doesn't. A January guest holding a gift card is a stranger someone vouched for. In one US survey reported by FSR Magazine, 44% of people said they'd try a new restaurant if they were given a gift card for it.

Treat that first visit as an audition for the second one. Have the server ask who sent them. Get an email address with consent. If you run a loyalty program, sign them up before the bill is settled, so the visit that cost them nothing counts toward the one they'll pay for. (If you're weighing whether gift cards and loyalty should live in one system, we priced that out in loyalty software costs.)

One thing to avoid: don't let the bonus card turn into a habit of discounting your slow nights. It works because it's rare, it's earned by buying a gift, and it ends on a date.

The room is full in December no matter what you do. The plan is for the ten weeks after.

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Sources: Nation's Restaurant News, Retail Insider, RCC × Leger 2025 Holiday Shopping Survey, TouchBistro, Ontario.ca, Office de la protection du consommateur, BC Prepaid Purchase Cards Regulation, Alberta.ca, Canada Revenue Agency, Square Canada.

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