Marketing
How independent restaurants win direct bookings and own their guest list
18 September 20269 min readRead
Cafes and restaurants
Your regulars should not cost you a booking fee.
A guest who books through an app belongs to the app; a table of four that no-shows on a Saturday at £35 a head is £140 gone. We set up direct booking on your own site with card-held peak slots, a guest list built at booking, on the wifi page and on the table, and the emails that fill a quiet Tuesday: the named midweek night, the new menu, the pre-sold supper club, Christmas from September.
Sound familiar?
The problems we keep seeing.
Owners come to us with a full Saturday and an empty Tuesday, and no way to tell their own regulars about either.
- Regulars book through an app and you pay for each one
- No-shows on Friday and Saturday leave tables you cannot resell
- Midweek is quiet and there is nobody to tell about it
- The menu is a PDF that is slow on a phone and out of date
- Group and private hire enquiries arrive mid-service and go cold
- Christmas parties get organised in a rush in November
What we build
Fixed-scope fixes, priced up front.
Each of these is a defined piece of work with a clear price and a clear finish line, not an open-ended retainer. Start with the one that hurts most.
A website that converts
from £1,000The menu as a real page with prices, 'Book a table' on every screen, opening hours and your hygiene rating up front, and a private hire page with set menus and an enquiry form that gets a same-day reply.
Booking system with deposits
from £500 setupResDiary, SevenRooms, OpenTable or similar embedded on your own site, with card-held bookings for peak slots and large tables, a plain-worded policy, and a 48-hour reminder with one-tap cancel.
Waiting list and email engine
Sign-up at booking, on the wifi page and on a table card, feeding one guest list. Then the emails, written and scheduled: the named midweek night, the seasonal menu, pre-sold events, and Christmas from September.
Review engine
A QR card with the bill and a next-morning email after every booking, plus reply templates for Google and TripAdvisor so every review gets an answer.
Three ways to fix this
Do it yourself, have it built, or have it run.
Same system either way. The only question is whose evenings it costs.
Do it yourself
The Cafe & Restaurant Growth Kit
£49
Every script, template, and walkthrough to build the whole system yourself. The free checklist tells you what to do; this is exactly how.
- Booking policy and deposit wording, ready to paste
- Midweek, supper club and Christmas emails, written
- Private hire first reply with set menu and deposit link
- 5-star and unfair 1-star review replies
Comes off the price of any build below if you change your mind.
Most chosen
We build it for you
The Full-Tables System
£1,995
£2,350–£5,000 bought separately
A website with a real menu page, direct booking with card-held peak slots, a guest list with the emails that fill quiet nights, and a review engine built as one system, so regulars book with you and Tuesday stops being empty.
- A website that converts
- Booking system with deposits
- Waiting list and email engine
- Review engine
Live in about 14 days. Add the Care Plan for £147/month if you want it looked after.
We build it and run it
The Full-Tables System + growth retainer
£1,995 + £497/month
The full system built, then run for you month to month: content, rankings, review responses, reporting, and every tweak the numbers ask for. Cancel with 30 days notice, keep everything.
Book a free callFor owners who want the outcome without ever thinking about the machinery.
The 90-day guarantee
If the system has not paid for itself in 90 days, I keep working on it free until it does. That is only possible because every build is scoped honestly before money moves.
Three build slots a month, delivered personally.
Or build your own quote
Just want one or two fixes? Price them yourself.
Tick what your business needs and get an honest indicative range on the spot. And if you would rather start with the free checklist, it is right there; it tells you what to do in what order.
Your indicative price
Tick the fixes you want and an indicative price appears here. Every item is fixed-scope: a defined build with a finish line, not a retainer.
Book a free call about this
Indicative ranges, confirmed after a 15-minute scoping call. No obligation, and the exact quote is fixed before anything starts.
If the system has not paid for itself in 90 days, I keep working on it free until it does.
Rather do it yourself?
Fair enough. The Cafe & Restaurant DIY Growth Checklist covers everything above as step-by-step actions, free. We would rather you did it than didn't.
Frequently asked
What cafes and restaurants ask before working with us.
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Working with cafes and restaurants? That is our lane.
Fifteen minutes is enough to work out which fix pays back fastest for your business. No pitch, no obligation.