Email Marketing for Restaurants That Brings Regulars Back
Your regulars are your most profitable customers. Email is how you keep them coming back, filling tables on the nights you choose.
Hands-on email programs for independent restaurants.
Email marketing for restaurants is the work of building a list of your guests and sending them the right message at the right time, so they come back more often. It’s the rare channel you actually own: no algorithm decides who sees it, and a single email can fill a slow Tuesday.
At 86 Empty Seats, we build and grow your list, then run campaigns that bring customers back, hands-on, by a former NYC chef who knows which offers move people and which just give away margin. The goal is simple and honest: more repeat visits from the guests you’ve already earned, the cheapest covers you’ll ever fill.
One service, or everything
Just want email marketing? Or all of it?
Either one works. If you just want email marketing, that’s all we’ll do, so reach out and we’ll price it on its own. Most restaurants find one piece only gets them so far, though, so if you’d rather hand off your whole marketing, that’s our one plan: everything done for you at the price you see here. You’re never locked in.
Website
Branding
Local SEO
Social
EmailSound familiar?
Are you a stranger to your own best guests?
No list, no way to reach them
A guest has a great night, then vanishes. With no email list, you’ve got no way to invite them back, so you start from zero every single service.
Slow nights stay slow
Midweek tables sit empty while a simple message to past guests could fill them. The audience is right there, completely unreached.
Emails that look like spam
Ugly, off-brand blasts get deleted or land in junk. If your email doesn’t look like your restaurant, it won’t get opened.
Nothing goes out, or too much does
Either guests never hear from you, or they get random blasts with no rhythm. Both teach them to ignore you.
Email isn’t about blasting discounts until your margins bleed. It’s a steady, well-timed relationship with the guests you’ve already won, handled for you.
Why it matters
Your repeat guests are where the money is
Winning a brand-new customer is expensive. Bringing back one who already loves you is nearly free, and email is the most direct way to do it.
What’s included
What does our email marketing for restaurants include?
Email that fills tables is a few moving parts working together: a list you own, the right message, and the right timing. Here’s what we handle for you.
List building & sign-ups
We set up easy, opt-in ways to capture guest emails, at the table, at checkout, on your site, through reservations and wifi, and grow a list you actually own. Healthy list building is the foundation of email marketing for restaurants.
Campaigns & promotions
Planned sends around your slow nights, new menus, events, and holidays. Our restaurant email marketing services time each message to fill specific tables, not just to stay busy.
Restaurant newsletter services
A regular newsletter that keeps you top of mind: what’s new on the menu, the story behind a dish, an event worth coming back for. Restaurant newsletter services make sure guests think of you first when they’re deciding where to eat.
On-brand, mobile-ready design
Every email looks like your restaurant and reads perfectly on a phone, where most guests open it. Hospitality email marketing should feel like an invitation, not a coupon blast.
Segmentation that respects your guests
We send the right message to the right people, regulars, lapsed guests, event-goers, so nobody gets spammed and every email lands as relevant.
Automated welcomes & win-backs
Simple automations greet a new subscriber and gently win back a guest who hasn’t visited in a while, working quietly in the background to keep bringing people back.
One good email can turn a dead Tuesday into a full one.
How it works
How does our email marketing work?
No mystery, no spam. As a hands-on restaurant email marketing agency, we set up the foundation, grow your list the right way, and run a steady program. You work directly with the founder throughout.
- 1
Setup
We choose the right email platform for your size, connect it to your site and tools, and set up clean, opt-in ways to collect guest emails.
- 2
Grow list
We build your list the right way, with table cards, checkout prompts, website sign-ups, and reservation and wifi capture. All opt-in, all yours. We never buy or scrape lists.
- 3
Design
We design an on-brand, mobile-ready template and write your welcome series and first campaigns in your restaurant’s actual voice.
- 4
Send
We send on a steady rhythm: the right offers and stories at the right moments, aimed squarely at filling the tables you want filled.
- 5
Refine
We learn from what your guests respond to and adjust. We’ll set up basic Google Analytics if you need it, but the focus stays on repeat covers, not dashboards.
The first 90 days, then ongoing
What makes restaurant email marketing work?
Email is the highest-return channel in marketing, and for restaurants it’s almost criminally underused. Done well, it comes down to a few principles that have nothing to do with blasting coupons.
- You own the audience. Unlike social, no algorithm sits between you and your guests. Send an email and it lands. That ownership is exactly why email returns more than any other channel.
- A clean, opt-in list. Quality beats size. A few hundred guests who chose to hear from you are worth more than a bought list that lands in spam. We never buy or scrape addresses.
- Timing over volume. One well-timed email beats ten random blasts. Reaching guests right when they’re deciding where to eat is the whole game.
- Relevance and segmentation. A regular and a lapsed guest shouldn’t get the same message. Simple segments make every email feel personal instead of mass-mailed.
- Story, not just discounts. Leaning on coupons trains bargain-hunters and erodes margin. The best restaurant emails sell the experience first, and the table follows.
- Written like a host, not a marketer. Warm, genuine, in your voice. Guests can smell a template, and they open the ones that sound like a real person who runs the place.
Done this way, email becomes the most reliable lever you have to fill seats on demand. A good restaurant email marketing agency doesn’t spam your guests into submission. It builds a relationship worth opening, then uses it sparingly and well.
We build your list with proper tools, keep it clean and opt-in, and run the whole thing hands-on, so the cheapest, most loyal covers in your house keep coming back. No SMS gimmicks, no bought lists, just email that earns its place in the inbox.
Want to fill tables on demand?
Tell us about your restaurant and your regulars. We’ll show you how an email program could turn your slow nights around. No pressure, no jargon.
Who’s behind it
Led by a chef who has run real restaurants
86 Empty Seats is led by founder Daniel Ruiz, who came up the hard way: from line cook all the way to chef in New York City, then into running operations, franchises, corporate dining, and catering for big-city rooms. He’s helped develop franchises and knows the math of a full floor from the inside.
When you hire 86 Empty Seats, you get Daniel himself, and he stays hands-on. He’s your single point of contact and the person actually doing the work, not a name on a proposal who passes you to a junior account manager. When a project genuinely calls for a specialist, a developer, a designer, an illustrator, he brings in vetted people he trusts and runs the work alongside them.
That operator’s instinct is the edge. Your marketing isn’t shaped by someone guessing at what your guests want. It’s built on years of covers, table turns, and slow Tuesdays. Daniel also publishes Sobremesa Press, a food publication with real editorial reach, wrote “Cook by Feel,” a book on cooking with instinct over rigid recipes, and co-founded Crewli, an operations app built for how restaurants run.
Questions
Restaurant email marketing FAQs
How much does restaurant email marketing cost?
We get the best results by running your whole marketing, not one piece in isolation, because the parts feed each other and that’s what fills your seats. So our main offer is one simple package: $995 a month per restaurant, done for you, with no setup fee and no contract, covering everything under the marketing umbrella, email marketing included. If you’d rather focus on just email for now, reach out and we’ll talk through what you need.
Do I need a big email list to start?
No. Most restaurants start small. We build your list the right way from the guests you already serve, and results compound as it grows. A focused list of real guests beats a huge list of strangers every time.
How do you build my list?
With opt-in capture everywhere your guests already are: table cards, checkout prompts, your website, reservations, and wifi sign-in, using proper email tools to manage it. We never buy or scrape lists, because those just land you in spam.
Do you do SMS or text-message marketing too?
No. We focus on email and do it well. We don’t offer SMS marketing, so if texting is a must-have for you, we’ll be upfront that it’s outside what we do.
How often will you email my guests?
On a steady, sane rhythm: enough to stay top of mind, never enough to annoy. Relevance and timing matter far more than volume, and over-emailing is the fastest way to get ignored.
Which email platform do you use?
We pick the right fit for your size and goals, whether that’s Mailchimp, Klaviyo, or something similar. You own the account and the list, always.
Is this a full service or just a tool?
Full service. As your restaurant email marketing agency, we handle the strategy, the list, the design, the writing, and the sending, hands-on. You’re never handed software and left to figure it out alone.
Let’s bring them back
The guests who already love you are your easiest tables to fill. Book a call and we’ll map an email program that keeps them coming back.