Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - The holiday season is here and many companies and businesses this year have officially revived their end-of-year, holiday traditions, festivities and holiday gatherings.
"Usually December is our best month for private events," said Matt Kahn, owner and co-founder of Big Ditch Brewery. "Historically, it's been that way for many, many years. Obviously, we saw a big dip in that beginning in 2020, but it has come back and rebounded pretty good every year since then."
"They came back last year to for us in a limited fashion," David Schutte, owner of Oliver's Restaurant, Creekview and Britesmith Brewing tells WBEN. "But certainly this year, people seem to be planning personal parties, corporate parties, get togethers at the restaurants, at their homes. It's so much more than we've seen in the past, which is very encouraging."
Following 2022’s bounce-back year for in-person events, the 2023 holiday season is poised to take another strong leap forward according to the experts at Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., a global outplacement and executive coaching firm that reports 56.9% of companies report holding in-person holiday parties in 2022, up from 26.6% who reported this in 2021 and just 5.3% who held in-person parties in 2020.
While there was a good majority of companies celebrating in 2022, it wasn't very easy to celebrate in Western New York, due to the two big winter storms that hit last year.
"What hurt us last year, honestly, is those two big snowstorms," said Sutte. "It really took us a little bit out in the Thanksgiving area and then right around Christmas time. So that kind of hurt some of the dining in business. But we still saw a little bit of traffic and our catering numbers total, company-wide probably were about 35-40 parties. This year, we're probably approaching 60 to 75 parties."
"2022 was actually going to be a really, really great year even for private events until we had the snowstorm which obviously negatively impacted a lot of events, both before and after the holiday. But this year, we're also on track to have a very good holiday season," notes Kahn.
Big Ditch Brewery Director of Events Patty Deitrick says bookings are filling up fast for December.
"This year is trending really well. Very select dates available at this point, more mid-weeks and weekends. But we're definitely looking on track to where we were pre-pandemic."
Both Schutte and Kahn says that private parties are a win-win for their businesses as they are usually relatively low-stress for employees as they know how many and what time they arrive and the owners know how to adequately prepare ahead of time for proper staff management.
"Our staff is our bread and butter are backbone of our business," says Schutte. "And we're very fortunate to have from top to bottom a great, great team. They like doing private parties too. It's a great piece of business for us and sometimes, especially the Monday, Tuesdays, Thursdays can be a little slower, so to have a party for 15 or 50 is is welcome and that keeps the staff busy and working. They always want hours this time of year too, so it's good for everybody."