Blasts for restaurants, bars and cafes
Turn reservations, loyalty memberships and repeat guests into a direct audience you can reach again. Specials, events and updates land on their screen, not in a promotions tab.
Built on Blasts. Guests connect once, control what they receive, and you pay no per-message carrier fee.
Getting a guest through the door the first time is the expensive part. Losing them afterward is quiet and constant.
She came in three Fridays in a row in the spring, joined the loyalty program, then stopped. Your email about the new patio went to 4,000 addresses and was opened by 600. She wasn't one of them. Nobody knows why, and nothing in your stack would have told her directly.
A big party canceled at noon and the dining room is half empty tonight. The right move is a same-day offer to people who already love the place. Instead you post to social, where the algorithm decides who sees it, or you pay a per-message SMS bill to a list you are not sure is still opted in.
You planned a chef's table for your best guests. The announcement went to a marketplace app and a mass email; strangers grabbed the seats and your VIPs found out from Instagram after it sold out. There was no way to reach the 80 people who mattered first.
There's another way
Blasts is built around persistent connections between parties who already know each other. A guest connects with your restaurant once. From then on you have a direct, encrypted channel that puts your message on their phone or desktop screen with your name and photo and a badge that says whether it is a Promo, an Event, a VIP invitation or just an FYI.
You already have several moments when a guest gives you their attention. RestaurantBlasts puts the invitation exactly there. Acquire the guest with everything you do today; connect once; reach them again.
The confirmation email, the loyalty welcome, the receipt or the table tent: your guest is already paying attention. That is where the invitation goes.
One tap or one code, and the guest approves your restaurant. No mobile number to collect, no list to buy.
Tonight's special, the wine dinner, first access for VIPs, delivered to their screen with your name and photo on it.
Placing the invitation in your reservation and receipt flow removes friction; it does not replace the guest's approval, and guests can mute or cut you off silently.
Not every message belongs on a guest's screen. These earn their place.
A same-day Promo Blast to your regulars list: tonight only, a complimentary starter with any entree. Sent at 2 p.m., seen on the guest's phone, no per-message SMS bill.
Wine dinners, tasting menus, live music, brunch pop-ups. Send as an Event Blast with a countdown and a calendar attachment so the date lands where the guest will see it again.
A VIP-badged Blast to your top 100 guests 48 hours before the public announcement. Chef's table, holiday reservations, New Year's Eve seating.
A typed Blast with photos of the fall menu, or an FYI when you change hours, close for a private event, or open a second location.
Points balances, reward unlocks, birthday-month offers and double-points weekends, sent to the loyalty list with a link back to the program.
Holiday pies, catering trays, prix fixe deposits or a headcount poll for a ticketed dinner. Blasts supports payment links and interactive polls inside the message.
You spent real money to acquire each guest: ads, delivery-app commissions, discounts, a marketing agency. Email only works when the guest notices and opens it. SMS charges you per message and lives under strict opt-out rules. Social reaches whoever the platform decides to show it to. None of them was built for a restaurant that already knows exactly who its best guests are.
Credits are bought once and never expire, with no monthly subscription. One typed Blast to one guest is one credit; a voice Blast from the chef is two. A weekly Blast to 3,000 regulars is 3,000 credits, and there is no per-message carrier bill for reaching the guests you already won.
The Blast appears on the guest's screen with your name and photo. Read acknowledgements tell you who actually saw tonight's offer, from confirmed actions rather than open pixels.
Reservation confirmations, receipts, loyalty signups and welcome emails already go out every day. Adding an invitation to them costs nothing extra and turns those moments into a durable connection.
Blasts integrates with Stripe, PayPal, Calendly and Cal.com, Zapier, and CRMs such as HubSpot, so payment links, bookings and guest records can stay in the systems you already run.
| SMS | Blasts | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Reaches guests who ignore promotional email | Depends on whether the person opens email | Yes, if you hold consented mobile numbers | Delivered to the connected person's phone or desktop screen |
| Per-message cost | Low | Per message, per carrier | One prepaid credit per typed Blast; credits never expire |
| Tells you who actually saw tonight's offer | Open-tracking pixels only | Delivery only | Read acknowledgements from confirmed actions |
| Guest must have connected first | No | Consent required | Yes, by design |
| Events with countdown and calendar attachment | Manual .ics | No | Built in, plus polls and payment links |
Comparison reflects published Blasts.app product information as of August 2026 and general characteristics of email and SMS. A cost model for your guest count and send frequency will be part of the rollout guide.
Blasts is not a way to advertise to people who have never heard of you, and RestaurantBlasts does not pretend otherwise. It is built for the audience a restaurant works hardest to earn: guests who have booked, eaten, joined and come back. That constraint is exactly why a Blast from your restaurant feels like a note from a place they like, not a marketing text.
For the person who will set it up
For the owner, general manager or marketing lead who will set it up. Everything below reflects published Blasts documentation.
Add your personal invite link (blasts.app/connect/[ID]) to the confirmation and reminder emails your reservation system already sends, and to the welcome message new loyalty members receive. The guest taps once and approves the connection.
Print your 4-digit connection code, or a QR to your invite link, on the receipt, the table tent, the menu insert or the pickup bag. Public organization codes work the way blasts.app describes for a bill or flyer: the guest requests, your restaurant approves.
If your loyalty program or reservation platform gives you an opted-in guest list, upload that roster and send personalized Blasts invitations at scale through Amazon SES, Microsoft 365 or Gmail. Each guest still accepts before anything is delivered.
Most guests connect on the iOS or Android app. Others use a browser extension for Chrome, Edge, Brave and other Chromium browsers, or the responsive web app at blasts.app.
Build distribution lists for regulars, brunch guests, private-dining clients, the wine club and each location; there is no per-recipient cap. Send typed Blasts with photos of tonight's special, a voice note from the chef up to 3 minutes, an Event Blast with a countdown and calendar attachment, a poll or a payment link, each carrying a Promo, Event, VIP or FYI badge.
Roster invitations are described in Blasts documentation as part of the Chrome extension; confirm before relying on them elsewhere. Exact setup steps will be documented in the rollout guide once confirmed against current Blasts documentation.
In one paragraph
RestaurantBlasts is an implementation of Blasts for restaurants, bars, cafes and small hospitality groups that want a direct channel to guests they have already won. Guests connect once, at a moment the restaurant already owns such as a reservation, a loyalty signup or the check, and the restaurant can then deliver encrypted Blasts about specials, events and updates directly to the guest's phone or desktop screen. It is a retention channel for known guests, not a way to advertise to strangers.
No. A guest must approve the connection before any Blast is delivered. Blasts is built for existing relationships, and RestaurantBlasts is built for the guests who have connected with your restaurant, not a purchased list or a marketplace audience.
That is a feature, not a limitation. It is why a Blast from you lands on a guest's screen with your name and photo instead of being filtered as marketing.
By putting the invite where the guest already is: a personal invite link in reservation confirmations and loyalty welcome emails, a 4-digit connection code or QR on the receipt, table tent or pickup bag, or personalized invitations sent to an opted-in guest roster through Amazon SES, Microsoft 365 or Gmail. The guest accepts once and receives Blasts through the iOS or Android app, a browser extension or blasts.app.
Public organization codes let a guest request a connection from printed material; your restaurant approves. Step-by-step setup will be published in the RestaurantBlasts rollout guide once confirmed against current Blasts documentation.
Blasts have no per-message carrier fee, travel over encrypted tunnels rather than the carrier network, show your restaurant's name and photo with a Promo, Event or VIP badge, and report read acknowledgements from confirmed actions. They require the guest to connect first, which SMS does not.
A typed Blast consumes one credit per recipient, so 2,000 credits; a voice Blast from the chef consumes two per recipient. Credits are prepaid, never expire, and are available at partner pricing through BlastCredits.com.
Yes. Blasts supports events with a countdown and calendar attachment, interactive polls, payment links, cloud attachments, rich typed messages with images and links, and voice Blasts up to 3 minutes with auto-transcription.
Blasts also integrates with Stripe and PayPal for payments and with Calendly and Cal.com for bookings, so a wine-dinner Blast can carry the deposit link and the calendar entry together.
Guests decide. They approve the connection, and at any time they can mute you for 24 hours, set quiet hours, turn on Do Not Disturb, or cut you off silently. Blasts also auto-delete after 30 days, so an old offer does not linger.
No. Credits are one-time deposits with no monthly subscription requirement, and they never expire. Buy what your guest count needs and top up when you grow.
Yes. Distribution lists let you name a group once, such as one location's regulars or the group-wide wine club, and reach every member at the same time with no per-recipient cap. Large lists can be staggered into daily waves.
RestaurantBlasts is expanding into a full rollout resource for guest retention on Blasts.
We're finishing the first edition now. Join the early-access list and we'll send it to you as soon as it's available.