Email marketing for restaurants
The list is already in your building — the guests who paid you, the ones who asked for a table, the ones who gave you an email at the register. All you have to do is write to them, and send the right thing at the right time. This is a working library of that: complete emails you can copy today, and an honest comparison of the software that sends them.
Templates
3 ready-to-send emails
One per situation, with the timing and the offer that make each one work.
Open the library →
Software
8 platforms, priced
Every price read from the vendor's own site, and every tool's real weakness.
See the comparison →
Free generator
Pick a situation, get a draft
A complete email with a subject line. No account, no trial, no upsell.
Open the generator →
Templates by situation
Birthday
The email almost nobody minds receiving
Three templates, five subject lines, and the timing that turns it into a booked table.
3 templates →
Welcome
Three emails, not one
The signup, the thank-you, and the rescue for the guest who signed up and never came.
3 templates →
New menu
Push one dish, not a PDF
The reveal, the limited run, and the one dish worth ordering on a slow Tuesday.
3 templates →
Why restaurant email is different
It is an invitation, not content
You are sending someone a reason to eat this week. If there is no reason in the subject line, don't send it.
One mistake hits a whole neighborhood
Your list is a few hundred to a few thousand real people. Send one email wrong and you have annoyed every one of them at once.
Timing beats copy
An email sent Tuesday afternoon about Thursday's tables will outperform a perfect subject line every single time.
Send your first email this week
-
Step one
Build the list before you write anything
Three places to start, in order of how fast they work: your reservation system export, the prompt at the register, and a QR code on the table card. The register prompt is the one that works.
-
Step two
Pick a platform
If your POS already collects emails, keep using that POS. If your list matters more than your POS, use a general tool. → See the comparison.
-
Step three
Use a template for the first one
Do not write your first restaurant email from scratch. Send the template as it is, and change one thing. → Browse the templates.
-
Step four
Watch two numbers, and only two
Open rate, and how many bookings the email produced. Clicks, likes and forwards are noise for a restaurant.
Updated as the landscape moves
Software moves: prices change, tiers get renamed, terms quietly change. We re-check the whole comparison on the first of each month and say plainly when something is out of date. → How we choose and rank tools
Questions we actually get
How often should a restaurant send email?
Once or twice a month for a newsletter, plus automated birthday and win-back messages when you have the list to do it. More than that regularly and your regulars will mark you as spam.
What should go in a restaurant newsletter?
Three things: something happening now, something worth planning a visit around, and one thing they should try. A newsletter that is only a link to the menu is not a newsletter.
Is email marketing worth it for a single restaurant?
It is the cheapest marketing a single location can do, because the list is already in the building. The hard part is not the software; it is having something to send.
What's the best email software for a small restaurant?
It depends on where your list comes from, not on which tool has the most features. We compare eight of them here, including what each one costs and where each one is weak.
How do I get guests to join my email list?
Give them something for it that is not a discount — a free drink on the first visit, a birthday dessert, early access to a sold-out event. A discount attached to a signup teaches people to wait for discounts. The three best moments to ask are the reservation, the register, and the table card.
What day and time should a restaurant send email?
For a weekly send, Tuesday to Thursday, late morning — it lands before the weekend decision is made and after the Monday kitchen rush. For a birthday or a seasonal menu, send earlier than feels early: five to seven days ahead for a birthday, three to five days ahead for a menu launch.
Written by the emailforrestaurants.com team. Every price on the comparison page was read from the vendor's own site and re-checked on the first of each month.