The second order went back to the app
They loved the food, and they reorder where they first found you.
Restaurants & food
The app takes the order. Then keeps the customer.
You pay commission on the first order and on every order after, because the customer belongs to them now.
The site, the bookings and the list belong to the restaurant.
Direct orders and bookingsA menu search can readPhotographs worth sharingThe customer list stays yours
A full Friday and a quiet Tuesday
None of these is about the food. They are why a full Friday never becomes a full Tuesday.
The menu is a PDFSearch cannot read it, phones will not open it, and the prices are old.
The booking goes through somebody elseWho owns the book, the email address and the customer, then rents them back.
The photographs were taken in the darkThe room is lit for dinner, not for a camera, and the shots are old.
Nobody is written toHundreds of people have eaten here and left an address nobody has used.
Ask about the platformsAny agency that will not talk about what the delivery apps cost you is not on your side of the table.
What carries on happening between Fridays
No figures, because we do not have yours. Every owner recognizes all three.
Somebody searched the dish and found a file
The plate you are known for sits inside a PDF that search never opened.
Their photograph is the one selling your food
The app's picture of your kitchen decides whether a stranger orders from it.
What we would actually do to a restaurant
Four decisions, in the order they pay off. Take any one of them in turn.
Ordered in the appThe name stays with themThe email stays with themA commission on every order after
Ordered on your pageThe name lands in your listThe email lands with itThe next order starts with you
Same food, same kitchen, same night. What changes is who is able to write to that person on Monday.
tasting menu near me
menu-final-v3.pdfA file to download, not a page to read
Ember & Larch — the menuemberandlarch.example
Wood-fired half chickenHand-cut pappardelleCast-iron cornbread
Each dish written out as text on a page a manager can change from a phone. Search reads the second one and cannot open the first.
The room is lit for dinner, not for a camera. One of these two gets shared by the person who ate it.
Ordered for pickup — added to your list
Booked a table — added to your list
Ordered through the app — never shared
Left an address at the counter — added
One letter a month to that list, written like a person and sent from an address in your name.
The order lands with you, not with them.
Direct ordering and direct booking on your own site, with the customer's details landing in your list rather than somebody else's.
The first table we would set
Own the order before you buy more of them.
Order matters here. A restaurant that buys advertising before it can take a direct order pays twice.
- First
Own the order and the table
Direct booking and direct ordering on your own site, with the customer's details landing in your list rather than somebody else's.
Every order that moves off the app is worth more forever, not once.
- Second
A menu that search can read
Real text, real prices, per dish. Not a PDF, not a picture of a chalkboard.
“Who does a proper tasting menu near me” is a search, and a PDF cannot answer it.
- Third
Shot properly, then written to
A quarterly shoot in daylight, then one letter a month to the people who have already eaten here.
The cheapest full room is the one made of people who came once.
The room you are trying to fill
Every empty table on a Tuesday is a marketing problem wearing a chef’s coat.
The booths fill on a Friday without any help. Everything on this page is about the other four nights.
What actually gets made
Not a mood board. Four things that exist at the end, and stay yours.
Read, not downloaded
A menu written out as pages
Every dish in text, changeable from a phone between two services.
Your room, your plates
Photographs shot in daylight
Your plates and your tables, in your room — not a stock library.
Shot before service
A room worth booking a table in
The dining room photographed before service, not over somebody's shoulder during it.
Yours, and portable
The people who already came in
An address list you hold, and one letter a month worth opening.
The half nobody puts on a restaurant website
Most of the work, none of the pictures, and where this usually falls over.
A menu a manager can change
Two minutes on a phone between services, and search can pick up the new one quickly.
The booking system you already pay for
Configured properly and pointed at your own list, rather than replaced because it suits us.
The order that reaches the pass
Printed where the kitchen actually reads it, not in an inbox nobody opens during service.
If you ever sell the place
The customer list belongs to you.
The site, the bookings and the mailing list belong to the restaurant — not to a platform, and not to us.
The domainThe siteThe booking dataThe customer listThe photographsThe menu
The list is the one that pays for itself twice. Nobody else gets to hold it.
Three things we will not do
All three are normal in this trade. We will not do them, in writing.
They bring people who would never have found you. What changes is where the second order goes.
If a new price takes an email to us it will not get updated, and we both know it.
All three go in the restaurant's name. Leaving takes an email, and we help you move.
Four things owners settle before they sign
Usually not. They bring people who would never have found you. What changes is that the second order comes direct, because the customer now has a reason and a way. Leaving entirely suits a restaurant with a line out the door, not most.
Then it is built so a manager can change it in two minutes on a phone, and search can pick up the new one quickly. If it takes an email to us, it will not get updated and we both know it.
You need to own the book and the email addresses. Sometimes that means a booking system, sometimes it means the one you already pay for, configured properly and pointed at your own list.
We direct the shoot and bring the photographer. Daylight, in your room, with your plates — not a stock library and not the chef's phone at the end of service.
Four services, one pass
Four we would run. Not the whole menu.
Advertising a restaurant that cannot take a direct order means paying twice for the same customer.
First
Direct orders and bookings
The menu, the table and the takeout order, on a site you own.
Website DesignSecond
Shot in daylight
A quarterly shoot and a month of posts written ahead.
Content CreationThirdThe regulars, written to
One letter a month to the people who already came.
Email MarketingFourthFound by hungry people
The map panel, the menu, and the searches that end in a table.
SEO & Local SearchTell us what you serve and how people order it now. What comes back is a plan for your restaurant, priced, and yours whatever you decide.
