This article is about the Proxi admin app at app.proxi.co, and the experience editor released September 15, 2026. If your participation link starts with map.proxi.co, yours is a legacy experience: it keeps working without interruption and there is nothing you need to migrate, but the steps below won't match its screens.
Restaurant week works best as a Passport: diners check in at participating restaurants, rack up points, and compete for prizes — and you get real foot-traffic numbers for every restaurant. Here's the full playbook, using a made-up "Downtown Restaurant Week" with 22 restaurants over 9 days.
1. Round Up the Restaurants
If your restaurants are already listings in your workspace (they should be — that's where their hours, phone, and photos live), you'll pick them when you create the passport: under where the places come from, choose Build one from your listings and check off the participants. The collection is made for you and named after the experience.
Not in listings yet? Add them on the Listings page first — Add Listings searches for the business and pulls in its details, or the Import a Spreadsheet and Extract From Text shortcuts in that dialog handle the whole roster at once. Then build the collection from them. It's a little setup that pays off every event after this one.
2. Add Each Restaurant's Deal
The deal is a field on your collection:
On the collection page, click Fields → Add a field, name it "Restaurant Week Deal," and choose the Special offer type.
Open each restaurant and fill it in: check Include a special offer, write the Offer details ("3-course dinner, $35 — mention the passport"), set Starts and Expires to your week, and add any fine print under Terms ("Dine-in only, not valid Saturday").
Collecting deals by email? Paste them all in at once with Bulk Edit instead of opening 22 restaurants.
3. Create the Passport
Go to Passports in the sidebar and pick Restaurant Week from the Start from a template strip (or click New Passport and choose it there).
Keep the suggested name or type your own: "Downtown Restaurant Week Passport."
Under Where should the places people visit come from? choose Use a collection you already have and pick your restaurant collection. This is the important choice: the passport stays synced, so a restaurant added or dropped from the collection updates the passport automatically. Click Create & edit.
The template names the tab Restaurants, adds the Clean Plate Club finisher badge, and turns receipt check-ins on for you. (See Create Your First Experience From a Template.)
4. Choose How Diners Check In
On the Restaurants tab, open Check-in Rules. With Verify check-ins on, pick what proves a visit. You can enable more than one:
Receipt — diners share a photo of their receipt and the total. The most on-theme for restaurant week, since it proves a purchase, not just a walk-by. Add Receipt Submission Instructions ("Snap your itemized receipt — any amount counts") and decide whether to Count receipts right away (no review) or approve them yourself on the Participants page.
Code — each restaurant gets a code diners type in. Set it on each restaurant's row (short and memorable, "TACO22"). Prefer scanning? Turn on QR code too and use Print → Check-in QR codes for one sign per restaurant, or let each restaurant print its own from its portal kit.
Location (geofence) — their phone confirms they're nearby, within the distance you set. Zero setup for restaurants, but a diner walking past could check in without eating; pair it with receipts if that matters to you.
(See How People Check In.)
5. Set Up the Game
Points — on the Restaurants tab, each row has a Points box. Set points for all… keeps it simple (10 each); bonus points for the far-flung spots spreads traffic beyond the obvious block.
Badges — on the Badges tab, the suggestions cover the classics: First Check-In, Out Exploring, and the Clean Plate Club for finishing every restaurant. For each you set the title, a description, an icon, Earn when (like Visit N stops with a threshold of 5, or Visit all stops), and What they get. Use the Completion message for redemption instructions: "You did it! Show this screen at the info booth for your prize entry." (See Badges, Points, and Prizes.)
Bonus activities — the Activities tab adds point-earners beyond check-ins. Rate the Plate and Snap a Selfie are ready-made suggestions; each has its own points and feeds your photo feed.
Leaderboard — keep the Leaderboard row on under Settings → Features & Tabs. Friendly competition sells more dinners. (Participants pick a display name at sign-up; see below.)
6. Build the Sign-Up Page
On the Registration tab:
Under General, write the Heading, Description, and Button label: say what the passport is, what it costs (if anything), and what winners get.
Under Sign-up Fields, make Display name required so the leaderboard shows names people chose, keep Phone if you'll send text updates, and + Add question for something like Zip Code if your sponsors want to know where diners came from.
Charging an entry fee or taking donations? Under Pricing, click Set a Price for This Experience. (See Charging to Join.)
Click the sign-ups pill in the header and choose Let people sign up early; people can register before the week starts.
7. Test It, Then Go Live
Click View as participant in the header, sign up with your Proxi email (everyone on your workspace is already a tester), and run a real check-in or two: a code, a receipt photo, whatever you enabled. To bring in a board member, click Add a tester. (Full walkthrough: Testing Your Experience Before You Launch.)
Tester plays stay out of your numbers automatically. If you'd rather start clean anyway, open your row on the Participants page and click Start them over.
Set Starts and Ends under Settings → General. It goes live on its own at the start time, and check-ins only count inside the window. In a hurry? The status pill has Go live now.
8. Spread the Word
Click Share in the passport header for the link (pick A printed sign, Social, or Email under Where is this one going? so your Activity page can tell you what worked) and the Sign-Up Form embed for your website. Print → Sign-up poster gives you a QR poster with the Join Code diners can type at play.proxi.co. Every restaurant can print the same poster and its own check-in signs from its portal kit, so their own tables recruit players. (See Sharing and Embedding an Experience.)
9. During and After the Week
Watch Participants & Activity → Activity daily. Busiest places and Quiet places tell you which restaurants are getting traffic and which need a push.
Use Messages for a mid-week email or text: the Nudge People Who Haven't Started idea is pre-written and goes only to people who signed up but haven't checked in anywhere yet. The When Someone Joins automatic message greets new sign-ups for you. (See Messaging Your Participants.)
Afterward: Export → One row per person is your prize-drawing list, the recap on the Activity view ranks every restaurant by check-ins, and if you charged entry, the Participants page shows who paid. Those per-restaurant numbers, "the passport drove 214 verified visits," are exactly what brings restaurants back next year.
Beyond the Passport: How Successful Restaurant Weeks Run
Tips from organizers who've run these for years (including a study of restaurant week organizers in seven cities):
Schedule it in a slow season. Mid-winter and early spring are the classics — the whole point is filling seats when restaurants actually need the traffic.
Use fixed price tiers, let each restaurant pick one. The standard format is a 3-course fixed-price menu at two or three city-wide tiers (Washington DC's long-running week uses $25–$35 lunch and $40–$65 dinner). Diners know what they're getting before they book. Put each restaurant's tier and menu in its Special offer field so the passport is also the menu hub — one central place for every menu is one of the biggest diner complaints solved.
Make joining effortless for restaurants. Hand every participant a ready-made kit: logo, hashtag, menu template, pre-written social posts, and their check-in table tent. A busy owner should be able to say yes in one email.
Add a charity tie-in. A small share of sales to a local cause gives restaurants a second reason to join and reliably earns press coverage.
Start marketing 4–6 weeks out — announce the lineup early, invite food bloggers and local media to a preview tasting before launch, and post daily during the week under one shared hashtag, resharing diners' photos (your passport's photo feed is a ready supply).
Measure while it's fresh. Survey diners and restaurants right after (a gift-card drawing lifts responses), and pair survey answers with your passport's per-restaurant check-in counts for the full picture.
Worth a read on the Proxi blog: Roswell Restaurant Week 2026 (a real customer running QR check-ins), turning your restaurant week into a sponsorship powerhouse, and creating a restaurant passport. Beyond Proxi: a peer-reviewed study of restaurant week best practices, Tourism Currents for DMO-side promotion, and two real-world models: Metropolitan Washington Restaurant Week and Ann Arbor Restaurant Week (run by a Main Street organization).