From Spooky Specials to Smart Execution: What Are Restaurant Chains Doing This Halloween?

From Spooky Themes to Smart Strategy

Halloween is one of those rare moments when customers want you to surprise them. They’re open to trying something new, and they expect your brand to join the fun.

In fact, trend data from Press Tomorrow shows a 94% increase in online chatter around Halloween-themed food in the USA over the past two years. Halloween is a great opportunity to capture some word-of-mouth marketing or create some buzz around your brand.

Although Halloween began as a North American tradition, it has become a major sales moment across Europe, particularly in the UK, and from Ireland to the Netherlands. Over the past decade, brands have transformed late October into a key period for themed menus and limited-edition launches. In the UK, store visits rose by 17% in the week before Halloween, according to Home of Direct Commerce, highlighting the strong commercial pull of the season.

What Our Partners Are Doing This Year

Across the S4D partner network, brands have taken that mindset and turned Halloween into a playground for experimentation, blending creativity with operational precision.

• 🔮Spare Ribs Express: This October, they brought a double treat to their customers through two creative campaigns, both powered by a Coca-Cola partnership. First, the “Trick or Treat Yourself” campaign combined themed visuals and playful copy to promote their Halloween Voordeelmenu, turning a simple seasonal offer into a moment of self-indulgence. Then, they followed it up with “Trick, Treat & Movie Seat”, a Halloween giveaway, inviting customers to win cinema tickets by engaging on social media.

• 👻 Apache Pizza rolled out its Monster Meal Deal – a full Halloween bundle featuring Monster Energy drinks, sides, and a chance to win a gamer prize pack. It’s a great example of cross-brand collaboration done right, using partnerships to boost brand visibility and drive engagement through themed promotions, quick menu updates, and consistent rollout across every store.

• 🧙 Fireaway Pizza took a different approach this Halloween, relying not on partnerships but on social media virality. They brought back their viral Crunchy Goblin Dessert Pizza, a Nutella and pistachio cream creation with a surprise crunch, and promoted it through influencer collaborations on TikTok and Instagram, most notably with family-focused creators like @craigfamilyblog, whose post gained the most engagement thanks to their large following, and @fathergoodadventures, whose playful video resonated with parents and kids alike. By tapping into trending formats and creator content, Fireaway proved that social media storytelling can drive nationwide hype just as effectively as brand partnerships, especially when executed quickly and authentically.

• 🔥 New York Pizza took a storytelling route this year by combining content marketing and product promotion in a smart, SEO-friendly move. Their Halloween blog, packed with DIY recipes and fun ideas, was paired with the launch of the limited-edition Scary Hot Pizza, topped with jalapeños, red onion, and fiery Buldak sauce. This bold choice fits perfectly with the Halloween spirit of daring to try something new.

• 🎃 Papa John’s Canada tapped straight into nostalgia with its Jack-o’-Lantern Pizza – a familiar favorite that makes its appearance just in time for Halloween, for the past 2 years. It’s simple, recognizable, and instantly shareable, proving that sometimes, tradition beats reinvention.

The Takeaway

While each of these brands has its own marketing strategy, they all share one thing in common: creativity backed by smart execution. From limited-time offers to social activations, these campaigns show how fast ideas can move when marketing and operations work together seamlessly. At S4D, we help make that possible by giving teams the flexibility to roll out updates instantly, manage seasonal offers across channels, and track performance as it happens.

At S4D, we help make that possible by giving teams the flexibility to roll out updates instantly, push seasonal offers to every channel (from POS and kiosks to websites, apps, and delivery platforms), and track performance as it happens. It’s how marketing and operations teams stay aligned, turning creative campaigns into measurable success stories. Whether it’s Halloween, Valentine’s Day, or any other limited-time offer, S4D ensures that great ideas not only look good but they perform.

And as the season shifts, one question remains: with Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Valentine’s Day just around the corner, which brands will take what they learned this Halloween and use it to push their sales further this year?