How to Get Repeat Restaurant Customers (Without Adding to Your Workload)

Here's the reality: acquiring a new customer costs about five times more than getting an existing one to come back. Yet most hospitality venues spend all their energy on first-time bookings—running ads, managing listings, optimising for walk-ins—and almost none on bringing people back.

The maths is simple. A regular who visits once a month is worth 12x more than someone who comes once and never returns. They spend more per visit, book ahead, and tell their friends. They're literally your most valuable marketing channel.

So why don't more venues focus on this? Because it feels like work. Keeping track of who visited when, what they liked, when to follow up—it's impossible to do manually once you're doing any sort of volume.

But it doesn't have to be hard. Here's how smart venues turn first-time guests into regulars without drowning in admin.

Make It Personal (Without Stalking Anyone)

People remember when you treat them like an actual human, not table 14. A birthday message. A "thanks for coming in" follow-up after their first visit. A heads-up when you've got something new they'd actually like.

The problem? Doing this manually is a fantasy. You're not sitting there with a notebook tracking everyone's preferences and visit dates. You've got a venue to run.

This is where your data does the heavy lifting. Your POS and booking system already know when someone visited, what they ordered, how often they come in. You just need something that actually uses that information.

Tools like nollie connect to your existing systems and automatically build guest profiles based on real behaviour. Then they trigger the right message at the right time—"we miss you" offers for lapsed customers, birthday messages, VIP invites for your best spenders. All automated, nothing manual.

See which systems nollie integrates with.

Stay Top of Mind Without Being Annoying

Most customers aren't actively avoiding you—they've just forgotten you exist. They're not opening their inbox thinking "where should I eat tonight?" They're scrolling Instagram, or asking friends, or just going back to the same three places they always go.

You need to stay visible without being that venue that spams them weekly with generic "BOOK NOW" emails.

The key is relevance. Send something when it actually makes sense. Your natural wine night to people who order wine. Your new vegan menu to your plant-based regulars. A midweek special to people who typically dine Tuesday-Thursday.

This isn't possible if you're manually managing email lists. But when your marketing tool knows your guests' actual preferences and behaviour, it can send targeted campaigns that feel helpful, not spammy.

nollie does this automatically—it analyses your guest data and suggests campaigns based on what's actually working. Then it sends them to the right segments at the right time. No spreadsheets, no manual tagging, no marketing degree required.

Reward Loyalty Without Building a Complicated Program

Everyone talks about loyalty programs like they're the holy grail. Points, tiers, apps, punch cards—it's a lot of overhead for questionable return.

Here's what actually works: recognise your regulars and make them feel valued. Simple stuff. A surprise discount for their third visit. A complimentary drink for your best customer. A thank-you message after someone's been coming in monthly for six months.

You don't need gamification. You need to make people feel appreciated in a way that doesn't require them to download an app or remember a card.

The best part? If you're tracking guest behaviour anyway (which you should be), identifying your regulars is automatic. Your top 20% of customers are right there in the data. The question is whether you're doing anything about it.

With nollie, you can set up automated rewards based on visit frequency or spend. Your system knows who your VIPs are and triggers personalised thank-yous or offers automatically. It feels special because it is—but you're not manually managing it.

Follow Up at the Right Time

Timing is everything. Send a "come back" offer too early and it's weird. Too late and they've already found somewhere else.

The ideal follow-up window depends on your venue type. Cafes might target lapsed customers after two weeks. Fine dining might wait 60 days. Casual restaurants somewhere in between.

But here's the thing—you can't manually track hundreds of customers and their last visit dates. You need automation that watches for you and triggers messages when someone's overdue.

This is basic CRM stuff, but most hospitality venues aren't doing it. They're either not tracking at all, or they're using tools built for e-commerce that don't understand how restaurants work.

nollie's built specifically for hospitality. It knows your guest patterns, identifies when someone's likely to return, and nudges them if they don't. Automatically.

See how nollie tracks guest behaviour.

The Bottom Line

Getting repeat customers isn't about running more discounts or sending more emails. It's about making guests feel remembered, appreciated, and giving them a reason to come back that actually resonates.

The venues doing this well aren't spending hours on admin. They've automated the tracking, the segmentation, and the follow-ups. They're using their data to build relationships at scale—something that used to require a full-time marketing person.

That's what we built nollie for. Your guest data becomes fuel for personalised marketing that actually brings people back, without you needing to manually manage any of it.

Because the real win isn't getting someone through the door once. It's getting them back again and again.