As with all good holidays, many traditions surrounding Día de los Muertos revolve around food —decorative sugar skulls, spicy hot chocolate, and more. On this holiday, however, the food isn’t always for… the living.

In honor of this celebration, bring your restaurants to life with colorful decorations, traditional dishes, and lively festivities! Read on for tips on celebrating and promoting Día de los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead, at your restaurant to honor the past, cherish the present, and embrace the future.

What is Día de los Muertos?

Since they fall so close on the calendar, Halloween (Oct. 31st) and Día de los Muertos (Nov. 1st-2nd) often get clumped together as one big holiday revolving around costumes and skull decor.

However, the two holidays are opposites in crucial ways. While Halloween is more or less about warding off ghosts and evil spirits, Día de los Muertos is about welcoming and celebrating the spirits — especially those of family members who have passed on.

According to tradition, Día de los Muertos is when the boundaries between the spirit realm and the real world dissolve, allowing the dead to rejoin their families to feast, dance, and celebrate. Many families honor deceased family members by leaving their favorite meals and other offerings at gravesites, or ofrendas, which are small altars kept in the home.

Feed the Living

There are several food offerings associated with Día de los Muertos. These offerings can be excellent additions to specials, the focus of LTOs, or used in unique ways to add accents to already beloved dishes. Popular Día de los Muertos items include:

• Calaveras (sugar skulls): These ubiquitous sweets are crafted from sugar paste pressed into molds. Once the sugar skull dries, it can be decorated with icing, feathers, food coloring, etc.
• Pan de muerto (bread of the dead): This sweet bread is often decorated with dough bones and skulls.
• Pulque: This traditional alcoholic beverage is made from fermented agave sap. Pulque can be served plain or with added flavors to make it your own.
• Atole: This hot beverage is a corn-based drink often flavored with brown sugar cinnamon.
• Hot chocolate: Often placed on ofrendas, hot chocolate can be served with a little chili powder for added heat.
• Tamales: Although served throughout the year, tamales are also popular during the Day of the Dead and can be customized with sweet or savory fillings. Contigo® offers tamales that are fully cooked and come frozen, making them the perfect heat-and-eat portable or entrée, available in pork, beef, and chicken varieties. These traditional tamales are hand rolled in fresh corn husks and are packed in vacuum sealed boil bags to ensure quality, ease of execution, and extended shelf-life.

Mix and match these traditional foods to create a special Día de los Muertos menu. For example, offer calaveras (decorated with your restaurant’s colors or branding) with hot chocolate. Alternatively, you could combine pulque, atole, and hot chocolate for a Day of the Dead-themed spirits menu.

Fiesta Forever!

Remember that the goal of Día de los Muertos is to respect and celebrate loved ones who have passed. Instead of pairing Día de los Muertos specials with Halloween ghosts and ghouls, consider offering and promoting Día de los Muertos LTOs that fit the holiday’s existing traditions. For example:

• Put together a picnic package: Some families bring picnics to visit the resting places of family members. Consider offering to-go picnic bundles with traditional foods like Contigo Empanadas, pozole, pan de muerto, and Sweet Encore® Mexican Lava Cake.
• Put your spin on sugar skulls: Calaveras are probably the Day of the Dead food with the most potential for customization. Put your restaurant’s own spin on these and offer them as dessert specials. Think of ways to stuff, infuse, or decorate them with additional flavors and garnishes. Pro tip: These photograph well for promotions through social media.
• Partner with local vendors for ofrenda packages: If you want to support Día de los Muertos but don’t want to change up your menu too much, see if you can partner with local vendors on an ofrenda bundle. For example, if you offer baked goods, maybe you provide pan de muerto, while a local florist provides marigolds, and a sweet shop crafts chocolate skulls. Other popular items for altars include papel picado (perforated, decorative paper), salt, and photographs of loved ones.

Día de los Muertos might seem spooky on the surface, but it’s truly a joyous occasion — so have fun celebrating with the spirits at your restaurant!