Taking Holiday Food Orders? Make These 6 Pickup Details Clear

Taking Holiday Food Orders? Make These 6 Pickup Details Clear

Okay, someone orders food from your business for a holiday gathering. Maybe it’s a family meal, a few trays for an office lunch, some baked goods, or a charcuterie board to bring to a party. They’ve made their selections, paid, and mentally checked one thing off their list. A few days later, they’re planning their errands and realize they aren’t completely sure when they’re supposed to pick it up.

They remember something about Wednesday. They think they saw the hours on Instagram. But now they’re checking their email and looking through your website, trying to figure out whether they chose a time or need to wait for a message from you... Meanwhile, you’re answering that same question for the fourth time while trying to get orders ready. 😅

If you run a restaurant, catering business, café, meal prep business, bakery, or specialty food shop, you probably know exactly how pickup is supposed to work. You’ve planned around your kitchen, your staff, and the number of orders you can reasonably handle.

Your customers need you to share that plan with them in a way they can ACTUALLY use. And during the holidays, when everyone’s coordinating gatherings, errands, and roughly twelve different people’s schedules, those details become especially critical. Before you start promoting your holiday food orders, here are six things I’d make crystal clear.

1. Separate the Order Deadline From the Pickup Date

An order deadline and a pickup date are two very different pieces of information, and both of them deserve a clear spot on your ordering page (and in any other relevant places on your website), like your menu page.)

“Holiday orders close Sunday!” tells someone when they need to make a decision. They still need to know when the food will be available before they can decide whether it works for their plans. For example, a restaurant offering take-home holiday meals could say something like...

"Order by Sunday, November 22nd, at 6 p.m. Pick up Wednesday, November 25th, during the window you select at checkout."

Now someone can look at their calendar and figure out whether or not they’ll be able to make it. If different items have different deadlines or pickup days, explain those differences alongside the items as noticeably and as clearly as you can. Someone ordering a catering tray shouldn’t have to guess whether the instructions for your packaged gift boxes apply to them, too.

Then check that your ordering system matches what you’ve written. For businesses using Wix Restaurants, its scheduling settings include lead times, weekly cutoffs, pickup windows, and daily order limits. Those settings can help you organize when orders come in and when customers collect them. You’ll still want to check how your setup handles a one-time holiday event, especially if you usually use a recurring weekly cutoff. Wix’s order scheduling guide explains the options that are available.

My practical recommendation? Open the live ordering page on your phone and walk through it like a customer. Make sure the dates they can actually select match the dates you’re promoting.

2. Explain What Their Pickup Window Means

“Pickup from 2–5 p.m.” can sound straightforward to you and still leave room for interpretation. Someone might think they can arrive anytime during those hours. Another person might assume they’ll get a text when their order is ready. And someone else might wonder whether or not they’re supposed to choose a specific time. If they can show up anytime within their selected window, make sure to say that.

"Come by anytime during your selected pickup window. Have your order number handy when you arrive."

If you need them there at a specific time, make that clear before they even complete their purchase.

This matters even more when the food is being prepared around the timeframe they choose. A hot restaurant meal and a packaged food gift can involve very different pickup expectations.

It’s also important to plan for what happens if someone arrives early or runs late. Your team needs a plan, and customers need a way to reach someone who’s actually monitoring messages during pickup.

And if your instructions say, “We’ll let you know when your order is ready,” make sure that notification is part of your process. Someone could be sitting at home waiting for a message while you’re wondering why they haven’t shown up.

3. Give Them the Exact Pickup Location

Your regular customers might already know where to go. Holiday orders can bring in people who’ve never visited your business before, including someone collecting an order on another person’s behalf, or someone who's in town visiting for the holidays. Give them the full address and any arrival instructions that will help! Depending on your setup, that could include things like...

• Which location their order will be at.

• Which entrance or pickup counter to use.

• If they should ask for someone in particular when they come inside.

• Where they can park, and if parking is free or paid.

• Whether they should come inside or call when they arrive, or if you offer curbside pick-up.

• Whether they’ll need an order number or the purchaser’s name, or some kind of confirmation code.

A caterer working out of a shared kitchen might need to explain which door to use and who will meet the customer. A restaurant might have a separate holiday pickup table so customers don’t wait in the regular ordering line. Those are small details, but they can make the WHOLE experience feel much easier and less stressful for everyone involved, including you. We all know how tense and busy things can get around the holidays, and if you're able to prevent a couple of unhappy, stressed-out customers from leaving a complaint or a bad review, then by all means, do what you can to prevent it!

If you’re using a temporary pickup location, put that info where someone can see it BEFORE they order. Finding out afterward that pickup is across town could change their plans quite a bit. I’d also make sure the confirmation email includes enough information that someone can forward it to a spouse, coworker, or friend and say, “Can you grab this for me?” That person should be able to figure it out without a whole second explanation.

4. Explain What They’re Taking Home

When someone orders food for a Christmas party or some holiday gathering, they’re planning around how it will fit into the rest of their day. A meal that’s hot and ready to serve requires a very different plan than one that arrives chilled and needs to go in the oven. An assembled charcuterie board is a different experience from a box of ingredients they’ll have to arrange themselves. Make those expectations extremely clear while they’re deciding what to order.

For a take-home meal, a description might explain: "Your meal comes chilled and includes two sides, gravy, and reheating instructions. Plan time to reheat everything before serving." Then include the specific preparation directions your kitchen has approved for that actual order.

Depending on what you sell, customers might also need to know serving sizes, whether sauces are included, whether they’ll receive utensils, or whether any trays or display pieces need to be returned.

Think about the moment they unpack everything. What could they reasonably expect to find?

Any handling, storage, or reheating instructions should reflect your actual food and process too, and the information your team gives should match what’s included with the order. Make it easy to ask ingredient or allergy questions before purchasing, too! Customers shouldn’t have to assume that leaving a note at checkout means their request can be accommodated.

5. Send a Confirmation They Can Actually Use

Once someone places an order, your confirmation becomes their reference point. They might come back to it several days later while planning their afternoon. They might search for it from the passenger seat. They might forward it to the person who’s doing the pickup. Give them the information they’ll need in that moment:

• What they ordered and the quantities.

• Whether they’ve paid in full or have a remaining balance.

• Their pickup date and time or window.

• The pickup address and arrival instructions.

• How to contact you about their order.

The GOV.UK Design System’s guidance on confirmation pages recommends explaining what happens next, when it will happen, and how someone can get help or keep a record. Applying that guidance to a food order, I’d want the confirmation to give someone a clear plan for collecting their purchase.

For businesses that utilize Wix Restaurants, there are customer notification options for different order stages, including upcoming orders and orders that are ready. Check which messages are active in your setup and what they actually say. Wix’s notification guide walks through those options!

A reminder the day before pickup can be helpful, too, especially when someone ordered well in advance. That’s a practical suggestion based on how people use this information. You’ll want to choose a reminder schedule that makes sense for your business.

6. Make Sure Every Version Tells the Same Story

You update the pickup hours on your website, but last week’s Instagram graphic still has the old ones, and so does your storefront. Your confirmation email says to come inside, while the person answering the phone tells customers to call from the parking lot. It’s easy for this to happen when you’re juggling a lot. And it's a lot easier and a lot less stressful to make sure everything is correct BEFORE the rush of the holiday busy season shows up.

Before orders open, check the places someone could find pickup information: your website, social posts, pinned posts, emails, signs, printed holiday promotional materials, and anything your staff uses to answer questions. If your general business hours are changing for the holiday, update those separately. Google lets businesses set special hours for holidays and temporary changes. Your holiday preorder pickup window might be different from your regular opening hours, so explain that distinction wherever it matters! A customer seeing that you’re open until 6 p.m. could easily assume they can collect their order then.

Once everything’s updated, ask someone who hasn’t been involved in planning to walk through the ordering process on their phone. Have them tell you when and where they’d collect their order and what they’d expect to receive. If they’re getting confused or they're unsure, you’ve found something useful to clarify before customers start ordering!

Make Pickup Part of the Experience You’re Promising

You’ve already put a lot of thought and intention into what you’re offering, how much you can prepare, and how to make the food worth coming back for. Helping customers understand pickup deserves a little bit of that attention, too. Start with one complete set of details your team's agreed on. Then use that info across your ordering page, confirmation messages, reminders, holiday promotional materials, and staff instructions.

Whether you’re prepping meals, drinks for a group, party platters, or food gifts, helping somebody understand what happens next is part of taking care of them. And this is one of the very reasons your website can play SUCH a helpful role in your business. It gives people a place to understand the offer, make an informed decision, and come back to the details when they need them. If your website could do a better job of helping customers through that experience, I’d love to hear about your business.