A loyalty program for your restaurant, with nothing for your guests to install

The download is where a restaurant program stops

A café regular comes back almost every morning. A restaurant guest might come back once a month, and that changes where a loyalty program has to start. There is one moment when a guest will do anything for your program: while they wait for the bill. Ask them to open an app store, install and confirm an email in that moment, and the program is over before it began.

So the enrollment is a QR code and a wallet card. The guest points a camera at the code on the table tent, taps Add to Wallet, and the card is on their phone. Apple Wallet and Google Wallet are already there, with no password to invent.

If you are weighing this against a cardboard punch card or an app of your own, our guide on how to choose a loyalty program for your café or restaurant sets out the questions worth asking.

From QR code to reward, in three steps

The same three moments, wherever the guest is sitting.

1. 1. The guest adds the card while they waitA QR code on the table or on the bill: they point their camera at it, tap Add to Wallet, and they are in. Nothing to install and no account to make, which matters most in the two minutes before the bill is paid.
2. 2. A server scans it from the phone in their apronAt the table, at the bar or at the pass, staff open the LoyalTea Merchant app and scan: earn, preview, confirm, undo. Where the terminal lives, a plug-in USB scanner types the code into that same app instead.
3. 3. The card updates before they stand upPoints or stamps land on the card right away, and a reward is claimed from the guest’s own rewards page rather than from a coupon someone has to find.

Points on the bill, or a stamp on the visit

A coffee counter sells the same coffee at the same price every morning, so one stamp per visit is easy to explain. A dining room is not like that: a weekday lunch for one and a Saturday dinner for four are not the same visit, and one stamp each reads as unfair to the guest who spent more.

LoyalTea runs stamps and it runs points. Points earn on the amount of the bill, so a big table earns like a big table. Stamps earn per visit, which fits a lunch service, a bar or a takeout window. Rewards unlock on the card as they are earned.

If the room you are describing is more counter than dining room, our page on loyalty programs for cafés covers the same choice from the coffee-shop side.

A floor team that changes every shift

A café can run a program with two people who both know it. A restaurant runs it with servers, bartenders, hosts and a weekend crew that turns over, some of whom started on Thursday. The record has to answer for itself.

• Every entry carries a name: each earn, redemption and correction lands in an append-only ledger with the staff member who made it.
• Mistakes are reversed, not erased. The reversal stays linked to the original entry, so the history says what happened.
• The scan survives a rush: the LoyalTea Merchant app on any phone, or a plug-in USB scanner that types codes like a keyboard.
• Repeat scanning is caught: velocity limits pick up the same card run over and over inside a few minutes.

None of this asks a new server to learn a system. They open the app, scan, and confirm.

Serving guests in Québec

LoyalTea is built by Groupe Loyaltea inc., a company based in Montréal, Québec, and French is the default. The staff app, the web dashboard and every screen a guest sees exist in French and English.

Two facts of operating here shape any loyalty program. The Charter of the French language governs the language of commerce and business in Québec, and Law 25 governs personal information: consent, purpose, and a person's right to see what you hold and have it deleted. What your program does about that is for you and your advisors: nothing here is legal advice.

Our Privacy Policy names the service providers we use. Some of them store or process personal information outside Québec and Canada, primarily in the United States. As Québec's Law 25 requires, we assess those transfers to confirm the information receives adequate protection, and you can contact our Privacy Officer for details about a specific one.

Our Montréal page goes further, neighbourhood by neighbourhood.

Who runs it once the doors open

We set your program and rewards up, launch it at your counter with your staff, and then run it for you: you tell us what you want, we make the changes. You keep full access to the merchant app and the web dashboard, and you can reach us whenever something needs to change.

Questions restaurant owners ask

Free during the pilot, and we set everything up with you.