For independent restaurants and dining pubs
You’re a restaurateur. You want to be out front with your guests and your team, not cooped up in the back office, and when you’re off, you want to be properly off. I look after the bookings, the guest messages and the daily checks, with the same care as your dining room. I’ve got it covered.
Your guests
Guests are the heart of any restaurant. You train your staff to give them a proper welcome, to make them feel valued, to remember the allergy, the anniversary, the corner table they always ask for. That rapport is what brings people back.
Guests once waited until you opened. Now they expect calls and emails returned all day, whether you’re open or not, and with the same care they get at the table. So what does your inbox say about you? Is it the same warm, attentive welcome, or a hurried reply typed between services?
I make sure every message carries the same hospitality as your dining room.
It takes the booking. Then the messages start: changes, questions and small problems that no booking form can answer. Someone still has to read them, decide, reply and update the system.
A booking app is just one more channel to keep an eye on. I take that channel off your hands, and deal with all of it.
Moving times, adding guests, swapping tables, reopening slots. Every day.
Dietary questions checked against the allergen chart, dog-friendly tables, birthday surprises.
Short-staffed nights, changed opening hours, new seasonal menus, all reflected in the system.
Ticketed evenings, large groups, unhappy guests, bounced emails, messages on every channel.
Always watching
A full book, a short team, a supplier on the phone, the owner wanting a word. That’s when messages sit unanswered and guests drift to the place down the road.
With me looking after your inbox and bookings throughout the day, from early morning to late evening, someone is almost always watching. Guests get a prompt, friendly reply, changes are made straight away, and you come back to a calm inbox rather than a pile of problems.
The core service
Bookings and the inbox, looked after every day for a monthly fee. You hand it over and stop thinking about it.
I take the part of the job that eats your day, and hand back anything that needs your decision, with the groundwork done.
Add-ons
Build on the core service with any of these. Bespoke systems are available to venues on the core service, so there's always someone running them, not just software handed over.
Big booking platforms give you software and leave you to run it. I take on only a handful of venues, so each one gets someone who checks everything and deals with every query.
I get to know your guests, your regulars and their little ways, and I reply in your house style. Every message sounds like you, never like a machine.
And because I’m not running a service myself, I’m fresh when you’re worn out. While you’re on the floor, or finally off after a double, I have the energy to give every message the attention it deserves.
Case study
I built the bistro's booking system and food safety app, and ran its bookings, guest emails and compliance remotely, every day.
Maltings Digital is small on purpose. I take on only a handful of restaurants, learn each one properly, and look after their guests as if they were my own. Everything behind it, the booking system, the checks and the routines, is built and run in-house, so nothing is handed to a call centre or a chatbot, and when something needs fixing, it’s fixed fast.
Pricing
One monthly fee for the core service, with add-ons priced separately.
Best suited to independent restaurants that care how every guest is treated, from the first email to the last plate. I take on only a handful of clients, so places are limited. Happy to talk it through with you and the owner together.