Free guide
A practical guide to bringing your customers onto RestaurantBlasts and reaching them in the moments that expire. It covers moving your email list over, where your code goes, how to structure audiences, who sends what, the messages worth having ready, and a 30-day plan.
Written for the owner, general manager or marketing lead who will run RestaurantBlasts, and for the managers and event leads who will send from it.
The messages a food and drink business most needs to land have a clock on them: two tables open for 7:30, the sourdough comes out at 3, holiday orders close Thursday, the release pours at noon. Email and social media are built for other jobs, and a phone tree takes the whole afternoon.
RestaurantBlasts starts on email with the list you already have. Customers who connect with the Blasts app get your messages on their screen with your name and photo on them, and the Hub moves each customer over automatically as they connect. The test for every send is the one a good host uses: would the customer be glad this reached them? Open seats, fresh batches, releases, deadlines and real changes pass. A weekly coupon does not.
Put the same code everywhere customers already look. Open Connections in your Hub and click Sync connections once to publish your enrollment code; the QR code and the printable enrollment kit come from the same screen.
Add the code, or the standing enrollment link where it is enabled for your Hub, to the confirmation and reminder emails your reservation or ordering platform already sends. There is no OpenTable, Resy or other connector: you paste the line into the template yourself, once.
Print the code or the QR on the receipt and put a card by the register or in the check presenter. A public code works the way Blasts describes it: the customer requests the connection and your business approves, or auto-accept in Settings connects them on the spot.
Add the code to the footer of every email you send and to your website. If your signup form can post to a URL, point it at the inbound webhook on Integrations, or use the Zapier app on request, so each new signup is added the day they join.
Print the kit as a table tent or menu insert, keep one at the host stand or the counter, and put the QR on takeout bags and pastry boxes to reach the customers who never sit down.
Every door leads to the same list. A customer can narrow their topics, mute you or disconnect at any time.
Most businesses start with a list: loyalty members, newsletter subscribers, catering clients. Export it as a CSV and import it on Connections. The file needs an email column; the Hub also recognizes name, phone, birthday and a tags column, and previews everything first. From then on those customers hear from you by email, and every email carries your code so they can move to Blasts when they like.
Onboarding seeds a starter pack you can rename, archive or replace. All Guests reaches everyone on your list; sending to it asks for a step-up confirmation. Open audiences appear as choices on each customer's preferences page. Closed ones are yours to assign and are never shown to customers.
Leave replies on for anything customers reserve or order from; turn them off on a plain hours change.
Roles keep the whole-list sends and the billing with the owner while the people who run the floor or the counter reach their own customers.
A send from the Hub is a typed or rich note with a photograph, links and up to three attached files of 5 MB each, such as the pairing menu or an order form. Pick the audience, ask for a YES or NO reply when you need a headcount, click Send a test to me, then Send now, Schedule for later, or Repeat weekly. Delivered and read counts for Blasts come from confirmed actions, not open pixels, so a low read count on a change of plans tells you who may still need a call. A read is not a confirmation: when you need one, ask for a YES or NO reply and the Hub counts the answers.
Replies land in Conversations, one inbox for Blasts and email. A regular taking a table you offered, a catering headcount, a question about the tasting: assign each thread to the host stand, the counter or the events lead, keep private staff notes (allergies, favorite table) the customer never sees, and enter bookings where you keep them. The Hub is not your reservation book.
Each customer gets your message one way: by email until they connect with Blasts, then on Blasts. You write it once. Email goes out under your business's name and is metered in email credits; every new Hub includes 50.
A Content Series is a set of different prewritten messages on a schedule: the chef writes five specials on Sunday and each goes to Regulars at 11 a.m. on its weekday. A customer who joins on Wednesday gets Wednesday's special. Content Series is included from the start.
Hub Pro adds Journeys (a welcome timed from the day each customer joins) and Event Campaigns (the announcement, the menu, the doors-open note and the thank-you built around one event date). It unlocks at $500 in cumulative credit purchases for any organization. Nothing in the 30-day plan depends on it.
One month from setup to a list you can reach the same day. Adapt the order to your week.
Choose Set up your restaurant's Hub at /hub/signin/ and sign in with an email code, a passkey or your Blasts sign-in. Setup walks you through your business name, website and time zone, and the Hub activates with the first credit purchase from BlastCredits. Open Connections, click Sync connections, and print the enrollment kit.
Import your loyalty or newsletter list on Connections. Paste the code into your confirmation emails and your newsletter footer. Put the kit on tables or the counter, add the QR to receipts, bags and boxes, and turn on auto-accept. Give your team one sentence to say at the register or when the check comes.
Rename or archive the starter audiences to match your business and build VIP with Bulk assign. Invite the GM as an Admin and the events lead as a Leader with grants. Send your first message to Regulars about something true this week, such as Friday's music or Saturday's bake, after Send a test to me. Start a weekday specials Content Series if the kitchen plans them.
Announce the supper club, tasting or release to its audience with a YES or NO reply and watch the headcount arrive. Give the host stand or the counter a daily habit: open Conversations at the start of service and assign threads. Rehearse the two messages you most need to send at short notice: last seats to the standby group and a change of hours.
Read the Reach funnel: how many customers are on email, how many have moved to Blasts, and which door they came through. Look at delivered and read counts and, once enough Blasts have been read, the hour they're read most. Write the holiday hours now and schedule them for the week before. Decide the monthly rhythm (the changes, the events, one specials series, offers sparingly) and check your credit runway on Home.
Blasts, the platform underneath, does carry those sender features when a message is sent from the Blasts app rather than from your Hub. This guide describes only what the Hub sends.
There is nothing to apply for. Set up your restaurant's Hub, and it activates with your first credit purchase on BlastCredits at standard pricing. The restaurant documentation covers every screen this guide mentions.
See it in a restaurant at Emberfield Kitchen (a fictional example organization created to show the product, not a customer)
Product facts on this page reflect published Blasts.app information as of September 24, 2026.