Restaurant SMS marketing: how to build a text list your regulars want

Why text marketing works for restaurants

Nearly every guest who walks through your door carries a phone that can get a text. 98% of US adults own a cellphone and 91% own a smartphone, up from 35% in 2011. Even among adults 65 and older, 96% have a cellphone of some kind.^[6]

Texting itself is old news to them. As early as 2011, 73% of cellphone owners sent and received text messages, and almost a third already preferred a text to a call.^[7]

• 57%

  of US restaurant guests said they were interested in texts from their favorite restaurants (Toast guest survey, 2024, vendor data).^[8]

• 83%

  of orders that came from SMS marketing were placed by people who had already dined there (Toast data, Q1 2026, vendor data).^[9]

• Up to 50%

  of order volume can come from the 7% of guests who visit more than once (Toast data from a cohort of businesses, Q1 2026, vendor data).^[9]

• 70%

  of restaurants with a loyalty program said it helped boost customer traffic in 2024 (National Restaurant Association).^[10]

A text list is a regulars list

Texts bring back people who already know you. That is the job: in Toast's data, a small circle of regulars can account for as much as half a restaurant's orders, and the same report found that 34% of regulars say they spend more per check and 77% tip more where they are regulars (vendor data).^[9]

Being remembered matters too. 48% of guests in that survey said being remembered is what makes them feel most valued, and only 30% said they always get that recognition. A text that knows a guest has not been in for a month is a way of remembering them. (Toast survey, vendor data.)^[9]

The economics of keeping a guest are old and well tested. Bain's Fred Reichheld found that in financial services, a 5% increase in customer retention produced more than a 25% increase in profit, because returning customers buy more over time and cost less to serve. Every restaurant owner knows the same pattern from the dining room.^[11]

Why now: thin margins and value-hungry guests

42% of operators said they were not profitable in 2025, and after a year when 60% reported softer traffic, the guests you already have are the cheapest ones to bring back.^[12][13]

Guests still want to eat out: 61% of adults consider dining out essential to their lifestyle, even with tighter budgets, and the National Restaurant Association expects value offerings and loyalty programs to play a key role. In the third quarter of 2026, 40% of consumers said they used more discounts or value promotions than they usually do.^[12][14]

Loyalty already shapes where people eat. 54% of quickservice, snack, deli and coffee shop customers say they gravitate toward places where they are loyalty members, and 41% of full-service customers call it an important factor. And 86% of full-service customers say they would likely act on a real-time promotion from a nearby restaurant, such as a lower price or a free appetizer, dessert or drink on a slower day. A text to your own list is a direct way to send one.^[10]

Text for what is timely, email for the rest

In a 2019 survey of 2,500 consumers, 83% said they prefer email for communications from businesses in general, but texts were more than twice as popular as email for urgent ones, such as a change of plans or a reminder (Twilio, vendor data). Keep the newsletter in email. Use texts for tonight, this week and just for you.^[15]

What to text: restaurant SMS marketing examples

Give people a reason to join and a reason to stay. In Klaviyo's survey of online shoppers, being offered a discount was the top reason to sign up for texts (59%), and receiving too many messages was the top reason to leave (61%) (vendor data).^[2]

On frequency, 72% of those shoppers said they were willing to get a text at least once a week, and once a week or a few times a week were the most common answers. For a restaurant, two to four texts a month is a comfortable start: enough to stay in mind, not so many that a guest reaches for STOP.^[2]

• Welcome offer. Right after someone joins, with the offer that got them to sign up

  Copy

  Juniper Street Kitchen: Welcome to the text club! Show this text for 15% off your next visit, good for 30 days. Reply STOP to opt out.

• Win-back for a lapsed regular. When a regular has not been in for 45 days or so

  Copy

  Juniper Street Kitchen: We have not seen you in a while and we miss you. Come in this week for a free dessert with any entree. Show this text by Sunday. Reply STOP to opt out.

• Slow-night promotion. The afternoon of a night you know will be quiet

  Copy

  Juniper Street Kitchen: Tuesday nights are quiet, so tonight only: kids eat free with every adult entree, 4 to 8pm. Reply STOP to opt out.

• Birthday. In the guest's birthday month, if they gave you the date when they joined

  Copy

  Juniper Street Kitchen: Happy birthday from all of us! Your birthday dessert is on the house any day this month. Show this text to your server. Reply STOP to opt out.

• New menu or event. A few days ahead, so guests can plan

  Copy

  Juniper Street Kitchen: The fall menu starts Thursday, and text club members get first pick of tables for the tasting night on the 14th. Book on our website. Reply STOP to opt out.

Example texts for a made-up restaurant, Juniper Street Kitchen. Each one starts with the restaurant's name and ends with the opt-out line, as a real marketing text should.

Five habits of a text guests are glad to get

• Name first. Start with your restaurant's name, so nobody wonders who is texting.
• One offer, one deadline. A single clear offer with an end date gets acted on.
• Short. Carriers count a text in segments of up to 160 characters, or 70 when it carries an emoji, so a short text is also a cheaper one.
• Timed for the meal. Send a lunch offer mid-morning and a dinner offer mid-afternoon, inside quiet hours.
• STOP in every one. The opt-out line belongs in every marketing text, including the friendly ones.^[4]

The rules: consent, opt-out, quiet hours and registration

Get written consent before the first marketing text

Under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), marketing calls made with an autodialer to a cellphone need the prior express written consent of the person called, and the US Supreme Court has recognized that a text message to a cellphone counts as a call. So before you send automated promotional texts, each guest needs to have agreed in writing, and a web form, a texted keyword or a signed sheet can all do that.^[1][16]

Consent cannot be a condition of a purchase: the guest must be told they do not have to agree in order to buy anything. You can reward joining with an offer. You cannot make joining the price of a meal.^[1]

Build your own list. The carriers' trade group, CTIA, says senders should not use opt-in lists that have been rented, sold or shared, and should keep a record of each consent: when it happened, how, the words used, the program and the phone number. A phone number on an order or in your point of sale is not consent to marketing texts.^[4]

Tell guests what they are joining

CTIA's guidelines say the sign-up should make clear what the program is, which number the texts come from, who you are, any fees, and how to opt out, along with your terms and privacy policy. The first text after someone joins should confirm the program's name, how to get help, how to opt out, that the messages recur and how often, and that message and data rates may apply. Standard STOP wording should be used for opt-out instructions.^[4]

• Sign-up wording. Beside the phone number field, on the card at the table, or under the QR code

  Copy

  Join the Juniper Street Kitchen text club for offers and news. Up to 4 msgs/month from (555) 010-0142. Msg & data rates may apply. Reply HELP for help, STOP to cancel. Joining is not required to buy anything. See our terms and privacy policy.

• Confirmation text. The moment someone joins

  Copy

  Juniper Street Kitchen: You are subscribed to the Juniper Street Kitchen text club. Up to 4 msgs/month. Msg & data rates may apply. Reply HELP for help, STOP to cancel.

Example sign-up wording and confirmation text for a made-up restaurant, Juniper Street Kitchen.

Make STOP work, every time

Today's federal rule says a guest may revoke consent by any reasonable method, and the request must be honored within a reasonable time, no more than ten business days. That deadline came from the FCC's 2024 order on revoking consent.^[1][17]

On September 30, 2026 the FCC adopted a new order, FCC 26-67. It lets a sender name a reply of a standard word (stop, quit, end, revoke, opt out, cancel or unsubscribe) as the way to opt out, as long as each text says so clearly, and it says a STOP sent in reply to a marketing text revokes consent to all of that sender's marketing texts. The ten business days stay. The order takes effect 30 days after it is published in the Federal Register, and the FCC says it will announce the date.^[18]

One part of the 2024 rule, about a STOP covering every kind of message from a sender, was put on hold by the FCC until January 31, 2027. The plain rule that holds under every version: when a guest texts STOP or any of the other standard words, or asks in any other clear way, stop all marketing texts to them within ten business days at the most. Good software does it the moment the STOP arrives.^[19]

You may send one text confirming the opt-out, as long as it only confirms and carries no marketing. A confirmation sent within five minutes is presumed to be within the guest's consent.^[18]

Text at sensible hours

Federal rules bar telephone solicitation before 8am or after 9pm, in the local time where the person is. Some states go further: Florida bars commercial telephone solicitation before 8am or after 8pm, and allows no more than three in 24 hours. A safe default is 8am to 8pm in the guest's time zone, and check your own state's rules.^[1][20]

Register your texting number (10DLC)

Businesses that text from a regular 10-digit number, known as 10DLC, must register their brand and their campaign before they send, and since September 1, 2023 the carriers block unregistered texts from those numbers. The registration goes to The Campaign Registry, which describes itself as the backbone of the 10DLC system, and a business files through its texting provider rather than directly.^[21][5][22]

What a mistake can cost

The TCPA lets a person sue for $500 for each violation, and a court can triple that for a willful or knowing one. That is per text, so a single send to a list without consent adds up fast.^[23]

How to build your SMS community

A text list is a community of guests who raised their hand. It grows fastest from the moments a guest is already thinking about you: at the table, at the register, when they open your email. And it grows faster with a reason to join. In Attentive's survey of US consumers, 85% of text subscribers said a welcome incentive influenced them, and close to half said they will not sign up without one (vendor data). Attentive suggests going no lower than 10% off.^[3]

Four ways guests join

1. 1

   A join page link. A short page where a guest types their number and agrees to your texts. Put the link on your website, your social profiles and your online order confirmation. Entering a number on a website is one of the opt-in methods CTIA names.^[4]

2. 2

   A QR code at the table and on the receipt. The QR code opens the same join page, so a guest can sign up while they wait for the check. CTIA lists signing up at a point of sale or another on-site location as an opt-in method too.^[4]

3. 3

   Texting JOIN to your number. A keyword on a table tent or the menu (Text JOIN to your number) is the fastest sign-up there is. It has a second benefit: the conversation starts with the guest, so ask them in the welcome text to save your number. iPhones can filter texts from unknown senders into a separate list. Apple ships that filter off by default in iOS 26, but a guest can switch it on, and a saved number keeps your texts in their main list.^[4][24]

4. 4

   An invitation to your email list. Your email list is the easiest place to grow a text list: 85% of email and SMS subscribers in Attentive's survey said they are open to signing up for both when a brand asks, and 83% said better perks would make them more likely to (vendor data). Send an invitation with a welcome offer and a link to join. An email address is not consent to text, so the guest still joins themselves.^[3]

Whichever way a guest joins, the sign-up says what they will get, how often, and how to stop, and it is never required to order. Ask your staff to mention it once, at the moment the guest is happiest: when the food lands, or when they pay.

How GetSetReply builds your text list

GetSetReply opens all four doors for your restaurant and builds consent, opt-outs and sending hours into every text. It works with Square: your register, your menu and your payments stay as they are.

• A sign-up page and a counter card. You get a sign-up page of your own and a card to print with its QR code for the table, the counter or the receipt. It takes sign-ups even before your texting number is live.
• Text JOIN to your own number. Guests text JOIN to your restaurant's texting number. The confirmation, the STOP reply and the HELP reply go out on their own, and a STOP applies to your whole account straight away.
• Community Builder: your email list, invited. Upload the email addresses of your own customers, confirm they are yours to email and that none came from Square, and choose a welcome offer. We email each one an invitation from your restaurant with a button to join, a QR code and your number to text JOIN. A guest who joins for the first time while the campaign runs gets your welcome offer by text. Uploaded addresses are never added to your text list: only a guest's own sign-up is, and that sign-up is recorded as their consent. Every invitation carries a one-click unsubscribe, and we honor it for your restaurant.
• We file the carrier registration. We register your business and your texting with the carriers for you. Their check takes 10 to 15 days, and you can set up your offers while it runs.
• Limits built in. We only text between 9:00am and 8:00pm on your storefront's clock, and from noon on Sundays. Texting laws set quiet hours. This window is set to keep every text inside them, so it is the same for every account and cannot be changed. No guest gets more than 30 texts from you in any 30 days.

Then the list keeps working

Once guests have joined, the texts in the examples above can go out on their own. A ladder is a short series of offers that each wait for a moment: a welcome for someone new, a nudge when a first-timer has not come back, a thank you when a regular reaches a visit, and a we miss you when someone has gone quiet.

• A Square code for every guest. Each offer is a Square discount code made for that guest before their text goes out, and your staff ring it up on the Square register they already use.
• Lists that sort themselves. Your guests are sorted from their Square orders into New, Developing, Regular, At risk, Lapsed and Top spenders, so the win-back goes to the regulars who have gone quiet.
• Results you can see. Square tells us when a code is used, usually within minutes, and Results shows which offer brought each guest back and what the order came to.

What you need

• A plan. Texting offers is part of Coupons. Available on Professional and Enterprise. Starter accounts can upgrade to add it.
• Your texting number. It comes with the Dedicated Number add-on ($10/mo, 500 texts a month included).
• Square. Coupons works with Square, and every code it texts is a Square discount code.
• Early access. Coupons and Community Builder are in beta: we switch them on one account at a time, set them up with you, and quote their price before you decide.

Restaurant SMS marketing, answered

Sources

Every figure and rule on this page comes from one of these pages, read on the date below. Vendor data is a company's own survey or platform figures. Numbers and rules change, so check the source for anything that matters to your restaurant.

Facts verified on 2026-10-25

1. 1.Cornell Law School, Legal Information Institute. 47 CFR § 64.1200, Delivery restrictions. 2026.
2. 2.Klaviyo. 100+ SMS marketing statistics (survey of online shoppers, with Recharge). 2024.Vendor data
3. 3.Attentive. How to Grow Your SMS and Email Subscriber List: 11 Proven List Growth Strategies. 2026.Vendor data
4. 4.CTIA. Messaging Principles and Best Practices. 2023.
5. 5.Twilio Changelog. US A2P 10DLC is now a fully verified route. 2023.Vendor data
6. 6.Pew Research Center. Mobile Fact Sheet: Americans' Use of Mobile Devices in 2026. 2026.
7. 7.Pew Research Center. Americans and Text Messaging. 2011.
8. 8.Toast. Restaurant SMS Marketing: Turn Texts Into Repeat Guests (guest survey, 2024). 2024.Vendor data
9. 9.Toast. 7% of Guests Can Drive Up to 50% of Restaurant Order Volume: The Regulars Report 2026. 2026.Vendor data
10. 10.National Restaurant Association. State of the Restaurant Industry 2025. 2025.
11. 11.Bain & Company (Fred Reichheld). Prescription for cutting costs. 2001.
12. 12.National Restaurant Association. State of the Restaurant Industry 2026, Executive Summary. 2026.
13. 13.National Restaurant Association. Persistent Cost Increases and Enduring Demand Will Shape the Restaurant Industry in 2026. 2026.
14. 14.National Restaurant Association. Quarterly Consumer Insights Survey, Q3 2026. 2026.
15. 15.Twilio. Twilio Study Shows Consumers Prefer Email or Text (with Lawless Research). 2019.Vendor data
16. 16.Supreme Court of the United States (via Cornell LII). Campbell-Ewald Co. v. Gomez, No. 14-857. 2016.
17. 17.Federal Communications Commission. Report and Order, FCC 24-24 (revoking consent). 2024.
18. 18.Federal Communications Commission. Report and Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, FCC 26-67. 2026.
19. 19.Federal Communications Commission. Order extending the waiver of the revoke-all rule, DA 26-12. 2026.
20. 20.The Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes § 501.616, Unlawful acts and practices. 2026.
21. 21.Twilio Docs. Programmable Messaging and A2P 10DLC. 2026.Vendor data
22. 22.The Campaign Registry. The Campaign Registry. 2026.
23. 23.Cornell Law School, Legal Information Institute. 47 U.S. Code § 227, Restrictions on use of telephone equipment. 2026.
24. 24.Apple Support. View conversations from unknown senders in Messages on your iPhone. 2026.

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