Written for owners of restaurants, cafes and coffee shops, pubs and bars, takeaways and delivery kitchens, food trucks and bakeries with seating, anywhere in the UK.
The short version
- Show the total price, compulsory charges included.Prices must include a compulsory service charge when the total can be worked out in advance. Tips and genuinely optional service charges can sit separately.
- Ask every guest for an honest review.Hand everyone a card and reply to every review. Never tie a reward to the score: that is banned.
- Track each channel's cost per cover monthly.Count platform fees and the commission you really pay. It shows where your next pound of marketing should go.
Guests find you through your website, your Google listing, your reviews and the apps. Start with the channels you control and work outwards, and measure what each one costs you. Two consumer rules also shape what you can do: the total price rule and the ban on fake or bought reviews.
Channels in order of control
- Your own website and booking engine.The channel you control most. Put deposit and no-show terms in writing.
- Google Business Profile.Reply to every review.
- Social media.Next in order of control, after your own site and your Google listing.
- Booking platforms.Count their fees in your cost per cover.
- Delivery platforms.Read the contract terms, and record the effective commission you actually pay every month.
Track the cost per cover of each channel every month. It tells you where your next pound of marketing should go.
Show the total price
Prices must show the total including unavoidable mandatory charges, such as a compulsory service charge. If the total cannot reasonably be calculated in advance, show how the charge is calculated just as prominently. Optional tips and a genuinely discretionary service charge may be shown separately. The CMA can impose a penalty of up to 10% of worldwide turnover, or £300,000 if higher. As of Oct 2026.
Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 Part 4
Reviews
Writing or commissioning fake reviews, rewarding only positive reviews, hiding incentivised reviews and suppressing negative ones are banned outright. Asking every guest for an honest review is fine.
DMCC Act 2024 Sch 20
A reward for a good score is a banned practice. Asking everyone for an honest review is allowed.
What your menu and door must say
- Menu words must be true and evidenced: 'homemade', 'local', 'free range', and 'gluten free', which means 20mg per kg or less.
- Display prices at or near the entrance (Price Marking (Food and Drink Services) Order 2003).
Before you sign a platform exclusivity deal
Delivery apps sometimes offer a lower commission if you list only with them, often with price parity, refund and chargeback terms attached. Work out what you would lose from the other app, not just what you would save.
| Commission saved a month: 25% instead of 30% on £20,000 | £1,000 |
| Contribution lost a month from the second app: £8,000 at 60% | -£4,800 |
| Net effect a month | -£3,800 |
The 25% and 30% rates are from the owner's own contract, not a market figure. The owner declines.
Building a guest list from bookings? Marketing emails and texts need the guest's consent or the soft opt-in (Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 reg 22).
Asked in Greymill
The saving: 25% instead of 30% on £20,000 = £1,000 a month
The loss: £8,000 from the other app at about 60% = £4,800 a month
Net: minus £3,800 a month, or £45,600 a year
Before any exclusivity deal: read the terms. Price parity (no cheaper prices elsewhere), refund and chargeback terms often come attached.
Where to grow: the channels you control earn the most. Each month, track what every channel costs you per cover, starting with your own website and Google listing.
Want me to work out last month's cost per cover for each channel?
Ask it about your own business
Paste this into Greymill with your own figures, and Marketing works it through for your business.
I run a restaurant, cafe or bar in the UK. Last month we did [number] covers: about [share] from our own website, [share] from Google, [share] from booking platforms and [share] from delivery apps, and we spent [amounts] on each. We [do or do not] add a service charge of [rate]. Work out the cost per cover by channel, check our menu and price display against the total price rule, and draft a review request we can hand every guest.
More for restaurants, cafes and bars in the UK
- Pricing a dish and a pint so the GP survives VAT and wasteSet menu prices from what a plate really costs, find the gap between the recipe card and the stock count, and know how many covers you need to break even.Read the lesson
- Getting through the rent quarter day when VAT and payroll land togetherTakings arrive every day but rent, VAT and PAYE arrive in lumps, and a rolling 13-week cash model shows the squeeze weeks before it hits.Read the lesson
- Charging the right VAT on eat-in, takeaway, meal deals and service chargeWhether food is zero-rated or standard-rated turns on where it is eaten, whether it is hot and what it is, and the wording of a service charge decides whether a sixth of it is VAT.Read the lesson
- Changing hours, running an event or losing your DPS without stopping alcohol salesWhat a licensed site can change during the year, by which route and on what notice, and what to do the day your designated premises supervisor walks out.Read the lesson
- Taking, renewing or buying a lease without losing your right to stayWhether your lease has 1954 Act protection decides whether your fit-out has a future, and the deadline in a section 25 notice or a pub tie trigger cannot be missed.Read the lesson
- Sharing tips fairly and paying casual staff without a claimHow to set up a tipping policy and tronc that stand up, what a casual hour really costs once holiday pay is added, and the rota rules that catch late-night sites.Read the lesson
- An allergic reaction, a food poisoning complaint or the council closing your kitchen: the first 24 hoursWhat to keep, who to call and what not to say when something goes wrong in the kitchen, and the insurance conditions that decide whether you are covered.Read the lesson
Open the interactive lesson · Every restaurants, cafes and bars lesson · What Greymill knows about the trade
Sources
The primary sources behind this lesson, checked Oct 2026.
- CMA209, Presenting the total price; DMCC Act sections 225 to 230 and 237 (Winning trade: reviews, price display and platforms)
- Sch 20 paras 13 and 14 (Winning trade: reviews, price display and platforms)
- Regulation (EU) 828/2014 as retained (Winning trade: reviews, price display and platforms)
- Price Marking (Food and Drink Services) Order 2003 arts 3 and 4 (Winning trade: reviews, price display and platforms)
- FCA v Arch Insurance (UK) Ltd [2021] UKSC 1, judgment and policy-wording analysis (Hard cases: money, growth and exit)
- PECR 2003 reg 22 (Operations, bookkeeping, company records and software)
- Directors and People with significant control (Operations, bookkeeping, company records and software)