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The most common asks are to make a reservation, ask a Frequently-Asked-Question (e.g., menu, hours, etc.), or place an order (for take out). The first use case deals with the challenge of receiving simultaneous reservations over the phone while running the rest of the day to day operations of a restaurant.
Photo: Shutterstock San Francisco-based delivery service DoorDash announced Friday that it has completed its purchase of SevenRooms, a New York-City-based reservations and marketing platform for restaurants. By Timothy Inklebarger and Joe Guszkowski on Jun. By Timothy Inklebarger and Joe Guszkowski on Jun. billion, both in cash.
This will also allow the operator to concentrate on the operational and menu aspects, ensuring that both customer service and menu innovation remain exceptional and continuously evolving. These restaurants can also focus on creating a sense of scarcity or urgency with limited reservations or special tasting events.
With 90% of diners checking a restaurant online before visiting, you also need a strong online presence to attract and boost reservations. Let’s explore 26 proven online marketing strategies to help your restaurant thrive. A smooth mobile experience keeps people engaged and leads to more online bookings.
Steady OnlineOrdering Brings Food Waste, Donations to the Forefront of Priorities Ordering food online increases restaurant sales, but it also can potentially increase wasted food if proactive measures aren’t taken – for both the business and consumers at home. Now, the process is fully digitized.
77% of diners look at a restaurants website before going out to eat or ordering takeout or delivery. If you dont have a website, that means over three-quarters of the people near your restaurantyour potential customerswill never come in or place an order because they have no way to find you when theyre looking for a place to eat.
An onlineordering system is table stakes for every restaurant these days. But if you're still on the fence about implementing online food ordering software at your establishment, take a look at some of the latest stats from the National Restaurant's Association's 2025 State of the Restaurant Industry Report.
Diners want the convenience of ordering, booking, and engaging with their favorite restaurants straight from their phones. Beyond mobile ordering, restaurant apps support operations in ways that were never available before. Onlineordering and delivery apps. Reservation and table management apps.
A well-crafted email can remind a past guest to stop by again, encourage reservations for a new seasonal menu, or even boost onlineorders with a limited-time discount. A well-timed email with a special offer, new menu item, or exclusive promotion can be the nudge they need to place another order.
Is onlineordering inefficient? Too many missed reservations? A smart reservation and waitlist system can help. Experiencing over-ordering or last-minute shortages? Are you aiming to speed up service, cut labor costs, or increase online sales? Are labor costs too high? Do you lose money due to food waste?
Today, customers rely on Google searches, online reviews, and social media to decide where to eat. People want convenience, transparency, and a connection to the brands they support, and that starts with how you market your restaurant online. A strong online presence means more visibility, more orders, and, ultimately, more revenue.
As a step further, offering a flexible menu catered to solo diners – with smaller portions to reduce food waste and allow the diner to taste more dishes – provides waiters with an additional opportunity to make personalized recommendations specific to these menu offerings. Cuisine type?
77% of diners go online to research a restaurant before deciding where to eat. Creating a strong online presence starts with understanding that today’s diners make most of their decisions through their phones or laptops: they search online, scroll, read reviews, and click links long before they ever set foot in your restaurant.
Every onlineorder, email sign up, and reward program interaction generates valuable insightsbut if that data just sits there, youre missing a major opportunity. Think about it: What if you could automatically send a special offer to a customer who hasnt ordered in a while? Restaurants collect a ton of customer data.
Promote OnlineOrdering and Reservations. Onlinemenus are one of the best ways to utilize technology within a restaurant. Using QR codes on tables, counters or even doors offers a touchless alternative to physical menus, minimizing the need for direct interaction with wait staff and encouraging speedy ordering.
With a few key optimizations, your restaurant can rank higher on Google, get noticed by people searching for places to eat, and ultimately drive more foot traffic and onlineorders. Restaurants that rank higher in local search results get more foot traffic, onlineorders, and reservations.
Review and Revise Your Menu Offerings. Before Restaurant Week kicks off, craft a menu that is friendly to both your bottom line and your customers. This way, you can encourage guests to return when your menu isn’t discounted while also encouraging employee retention by showcasing your kitchen team’s talents and creativity.
Restaurants will also explore delivery options beyond costly third-party partnerships, and hike delivery menu prices to make the channel more lucrative as off-premise demand holds steady. Simplified Menus. Menu variety plays a substantial role in every dining experience. Health-Conscious Food Will Dominate Menus.
Some great examples for restaurants are: How often the customer orders. What the customer orders. Which of your locations the customer orders from most. What the customer orders. How the customer prefers to order (for delivery, for pick-up or to dine-in). How many people does the customer orders for at a time.
As a result, the use of self-ordering kiosks and QR codes during the pandemic went up by 750 percent, with 77 percent of survey respondents saying they would prefer contactless ordering and payment once the pandemic ends. Also, menus largely went digital, and more restaurants have since adopted digital menu managers as a way of life.
Service is about accuracy and efficiencytaking an order, delivering food, clearing a table. Whether its remembering a regulars order or simply offering a sincere greeting, small actions can build emotional loyalty that no discount or trend can match. Hospitality is how you make someone feel during that process.
Ever noticed how ordering your favorite meal has become as easy as pie? That’s the magic of online food ordering systems. The benefits of online food ordering system go beyond convenience. With mobile ordering , you can satisfy that craving without moving an inch. 24/7 Accessibility Midnight munchies?
To go contactless, customers scanned a small black and white square called a QR code on their mobile device to see a digital copy of the menu. Some restaurants even took safety a step further by eliminating in-person ordering and offering contactless payment. Having great online reviews can also help drum up business.
As a restaurant owner, you’ve put some serious thought into your interior design, menu development and ambience creation to make your guests feel comfortable and attract more people to visit. Represent the whole menu. Implement an onlinereservation system. Single-use or sanitized menus.
The right restaurant newsletter doesnt just share updates; it keeps customers invested in your brand, your menu, and your next move. Its your chance to turn casual diners into consistent regulars, promote new menu items before they even hit the table, and build a real sense of community around your restaurant.
From managing an off-premise presence with onlineordering platforms to navigating the labor shortage and keeping costs down, it’s clear from the emerging trends we are seeing that technology is at the heart of helping FSRs not only survive but make gains during these extremely challenging times.”
Organize all your orders dine-in, online, and third-party and fulfill them in a flash, right from your POS. On menu structure The old space was all consistently one menu. At the new space, we have three different menus every night. Subscribe now for more stories like this.
Make Your Menu the Main Course. Whether you are offering a special Valentine’s Day prix fixe menu for two or romantic carry out options, your offerings need to be easily accessible to customers looking for local dining options.
Crafting a Captivating Website Experience Your restaurant's website is the first point of contact for many potential customers, making it crucial to create a captivating online experience. Ensure that your site is intuitive and easy to navigate, with clear menus, contact information, and reservation options readily accessible.
From managing reservations at the host stand or firing orders straight to the kitchen from table side, tablets are changing the way restaurants run. Bonus points if the interface is also customer-friendly, especially if you plan to use tablets for self-ordering or digital menus.
By analyzing customer preferences, dining habits, and feedback, AI chatbots can send personalized messages to engage customers with new menu items, exclusive offers, and meal recommendations. Automated Ordering AI-powered chatbots can handle customer orders, reducing the need for human intervention.
Henry is ready to order some dinner. He visits your restaurant’s app and orders his favorite dish on the menu. He receives an estimated wait time for his order of 45 minutes. As he is about to enter the restaurant, let’s consider the technology that he will encounter along his journey to pick up his order.
The right promotion at the right time can reignite business, whether that means a packed dining room on a slow weekday or reconnecting with loyal customers who havent ordered in a while. Are you trying to increase your direct onlineordering ? Only use this deal on menu items that cost you very little to produce.
But, along the boulevard of onlineordering, new locations are built with a handful of pixels, not a truckload of bricks. Next, create a brand and menu to be hosted locally or on your favorite aggregator. Finally, find a place to cook and start filling orders, often alongside tickets from a traditional front-of-house.
Takeout orders increased 46 percent Shift in Guest Dining Preferences for Valentine's As restaurants prepare for Valentine's Day, new data from Tock reveals a clear shift in guest dining preferences and booking patterns. Analyzing data from full-service restaurants on Feb. contributing 21 percent of total transactions.
Restaurant operations management is the art and science of keeping a restaurant running smoothly, creating order in a naturally chaotic environment. Successful restaurant operators use data-driven ordering, reliable supplier relationships, and waste-reduction strategies to keep inventory lean without sacrificing quality.
Restaurants have made great strides in the digital realm—from contactless payments to onlineordering—but 32 percent of them feel like they could add to their technology stack to optimize operations. Restaurants should have a robust marketing strategy and strong online presence to attract new customers these days.
By incorporating technology-driven solutions, like direct onlineordering for delivery and pickup , operators can own and utilize guest data to not only gain access to key customer insights, but also engage with them in new, unique ways. And the benefits don’t stop there. Operators must also get creative with guest offerings.
Its significantly more cost-effective to keep your regulars walking through the door than it is to get a new customer every time you take an order. Customers earn rewards by meeting thresholds you define, whether its the number of orders or total dollars spent. All you have to do is keep them happy. And when you do?
These are tools that can help you streamline operations, easily schedule staff, and make sure you never run out of ingredients for your best-selling menu items. It allows AI to understand and respond to human language, which is how virtual assistants can answer customer questions or take onlineorders.
You should still use it as an opportunity to go the extra mile, however, by including special menu items on this page. What you might not realize is that even if you're a primarily a dine-in restaurant, the chances are high that the majority of your orders and/or reservations are still coming from these mobile devices.
Creating and deliver engaging content, maintaining customer communications, establishing an online presence, reviewing data-driven analytics, setting up paid advertising initiatives…all of these important steps take time. Think for a moment about your restaurant’s current online presence. Can they view your menuonline?
If your site is clunky, hard to navigate, or missing basic features like a prominent onlineordering button, your potential customer will bounce because diners have little to no tolerance for friction or confusion when theyre looking for food. 77% of diners visit a restaurants website before they dine in or order takeout or delivery.
Automation tools also provide value through mobile ordering apps, AI solutions, digital reviews apps, and onlinereservation software. Mobile Order Applications Mobile smart order apps for waiters help to speed up the service and manage the orders right at the guest’s table.
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