For years, Restaurant Week in New Lenox, Illinois ran the way most of them do. A flyer went out with the deals. It got posted on social media, the village website, and the local paper. Then everyone hoped for the best.

In September 2026, the Village of New Lenox and the New Lenox Chamber of Commerce ran it as a digital passport for the first time. 696 people signed up. One pizza place counted 454 tickets tied to the promotion. Another restaurant saw a 15 to 20 percent revenue bump for the week. And for the first time, the team had numbers to show for it.

Sarah Marion, Marketing Specialist for the Village of New Lenox, walked us through how it went.

Before: a flyer and a hope

Sarah put the old version plainly.

"In the past, Restaurant week consisted of a flyer listing restaurant deals. It was co- shared on social media posts, the village website and in the local newspaper. (There was really no concrete way of knowing how many people participated)."

Sarah Marion, Village of New Lenox

That last line is the whole problem. The event happened every year, restaurants took part, and nobody could say whether it worked.

What they built

The 2026 version ran the week of September 8 to 15 with 25 participating restaurants on a Proxi passport. Diners signed up once, then checked in at each restaurant they visited.

The setup was simple and physical. Every restaurant got a printed flyer for its window with a QR code to sign up for Restaurant Week. Inside, a second QR code sat at the register for checking in.

The incentive was a Dine New Lenox Grand Prize, funded by the restaurants themselves.

"To incentivize people to participate, we offered a Dine New Lenox Grand Prize—participating restaurants donated gift cards in the amount of their choice. We ended up with over $300 in gift cards. We picked the winner by who checked in to the most restaurants (the winner checked into 12!)"

Sarah Marion, Village of New Lenox

Promotion started well before launch, which is a detail most first-time organizers miss.

"We utilized social media, both organic and paid ads and a Facebook event page. We started the paid ads a few weeks prior to launch to be able to ramp up the participants ahead of the actual event. We also created Facebook/IG reels to promote the event on location at several of the restaurants."

Sarah Marion, Village of New Lenox

The numbers

• 696 participants signed up for the passport
• 25 participating restaurants
• 638 phone numbers collected on the signup list
• Over $300 in gift cards for the grand prize, donated by restaurants
• 12 check-ins by the grand prize winner

The restaurants reported their own results in a post-event survey the village sent out:

• Beggar's Pizza: an estimated 454 tickets. "Much more enthusiasm this year due to QR codes and the rewards associated with the same."
• Gatto's: "I think we saw a 15 to 20% increase in revenue during the week. The feedback that we received is that RW was the reason they decided to try our restaurant."
• JBD White Horse Inn: 70 Restaurant Week menu items sold. Some customers asked for the items to stay on the regular menu.
• Rosati's Pizza: 35 customers attributed to Restaurant Week.

Since this was the first run, the team had not set a signup target. "We were extremely happy with the results however!" Sarah said.

The surprise, and the hard part

The good surprise was that people actually used it.

"I was happily surprised to see that people were checking in and utilizing the passport. I was also happy to see the number of initial sign ups!"

Sarah Marion, Village of New Lenox

The hard part was the gap between the two. Plenty of people signed up and never checked in anywhere. "I did notice a discrepancy between the number of sign ups and the number of people who didn't follow through and check in. I'm curious on what to do about that," Sarah said.

Some of that gap traces back to the restaurants. Shawna Casey, franchise owner at Rosati's, said it directly: "I like the structure of it this year. I think next year with some more advertising of the way to check in next year, it will be more effective and successful."

Sarah's read is the same. Staff at some restaurants were unclear on how check-in worked, so diners who showed up ready to participate did not always get prompted.

Our recommendation: message the people who signed up

Here is the thing about that gap. Everyone who registered and never checked in is already on the list, and 638 of them left a phone number. That is not a lost audience. It is a warm one that has not been reminded yet.

Our recommendation for New Lenox, and for any organizer seeing the same pattern, is to send email and SMS messages to registrants during the week, straight from Proxi. A text on day two that says "You are signed up for Restaurant Week. Here are this week's deals, and the grand prize goes to whoever checks in the most" turns a signup into a visit. A second message midweek with a leaderboard update, and a final one on the last day, keeps the people who meant to go from running out of week.

You can make it more targeted than that. Proxi lets you filter passport participants by check-in count, so you can message only the people who signed up and have zero check-ins. The diners already out visiting restaurants do not get nagged, and the ones who have not started get the nudge they need. Since the contacts already live in the same place as the passport, this takes minutes to set up and no exporting. It is the cheapest way to close the gap between 696 signups and the number who actually walked through a door.

What to copy next year

Sarah's advice for another director running this for the first time is specific.

"Make sure the restaurants understand the process for checking in, as well as make sure they inform all staff of the promotion. I think some were a little confused. Also, putting the full list of restaurants and their deals out on social media was an afterthought, but next year, I think we should do this when we launch so people can see what they will get if they sign up."

Sarah Marion, Village of New Lenox

Pulling it together, the New Lenox playbook looks like this:

1. Start paid social a few weeks before launch so the signup list is already growing on day one.
2. Publish the full deals list at launch, not partway through. People sign up for specific offers, not for the idea of a restaurant week.
3. Put a signup QR code in every window and a check-in QR code at every register.
4. Brief every staff member, not just the owner. The check-in only happens if the person at the counter knows to mention it.
5. Have restaurants fund the grand prize with gift cards, and award it on most check-ins. It costs the organizer nothing and rewards the behavior you want.
6. Text and email the registrants who have not checked in yet. They already said yes. Remind them why.

The best part for the village and chamber is that they now have a starting point. Next year's Restaurant Week has a baseline of 696, a list of people who already opted in, and a survey from the restaurants saying what to fix. That is a very different place to start from than a flyer.

If you are planning a restaurant week, our step-by-step guide to running a restaurant week passport challenge covers the setup, and you can see what a live passport looks like on the Proxi demo site.