iMessage for restaurants and cafes

A four-top that does not show on a Saturday is not a lost booking, it is a lost table for the whole service. Restaurants have the sharpest version of the no-show problem and the least tolerance for solving it badly, because a diner who feels spammed simply goes elsewhere.

The two messages worth sending

1. 01Reservation confirmation and reminder. Same day, a few hours out, with a one-tap way to cancel. Making cancellation easy sounds wrong and is right: a cancelled table can be rebooked, a no-show cannot.
2. 02Waitlist ping. 'Your table is ready' to someone standing nearby is the single most useful text a restaurant sends, and it frees your host from shouting names.

export const restaurant = {
  confirm: (c: Ctx) =>
    `${c.venue}: table for ${c.partySize} tonight at ${c.time}. ` +
    `Reply C to confirm, or X if plans changed — no problem either way.`,
 
  tableReady: (c: Ctx) =>
    `${c.venue}: your table's ready. Come on in whenever you like.`,
 
  waitUpdate: (c: Ctx) =>
    `${c.venue}: looking like about ${c.minutes} more minutes. ` +
    `We'll text the moment it's free.`,
};

The message that will get you blocked

The Thursday promotion. 'Two-for-one on mains this week!' to everyone who ever booked a table. It is marketing, it needs express written consent, and even with consent it is the message that makes people mute a restaurant they liked. If you must run promotions, use email and let people come to you.

Timing matters here more than in most industries — a reservation reminder at 4pm is helpful, the same message at 10am is noise, and anything before 9am is an intrusion. See quiet hours and frequency.