Toast Loyalty Best Practices for Full Service Restaurants
Last updated: Dec 29, 2025, 3:10 PM
Loyalty for Full Service Restaurants Overview
Are you a full service or fine dining restaurant that purchased Toast Loyalty, but you're curious about how it can best work for your restaurant model?
Check out these best practices curated specifically for full-service restaurants so you can get the most from your Loyalty program and see additional sales and more repeat visits from your guests!
Still not convinced? Start by using Toast's ROI calculator to estimate how much extra revenue your restaurant could be bringing in annually. For instance, if your restaurant has 5 loyalty signups per month, your average check size is $100 at your restaurant, and your average guest enrolled with your loyalty program visits 10 times per year- you can see an ROI of $10,200 in additional sales per year!
Best Practices
Realize the value of leveraging your Guestbook to better know your customers.
Loyalty (along with Online Ordering and other digital tools) is one of the best ways to collect guest information. When you use Loyalty and other Toast marketing products, you have access to the Guestbook, which is a full report of your guests. You can learn a lot about your guests through the Guestbook report (for example you can see how much your guests order, their average spend, tipping habits, who your regulars are, and which guests haven't been in a while).
This data allows you to understand your guests better and reach them through multiple communication channels. You can filter the Guestbook in any way you'd like and then supercharge your marketing efforts by sending marketing emails to targeted lists.
Use this Loyalty data (plus your Marketing reports) as information- make Toast work for you!
Use Loyalty as a strategic tool to influence how and when your guests drive volume to your restaurant.
With Bonus points and perks, you can drive to a preferred channel or a day or time of day (day and time bonus) to help offset labor costs. This can be configured by navigating to Toast Web > Marketing > Loyalty settings in the Loyalty section (Note: You must be logged in to Toast Web to access these settings).
Day and Time bonus is a great way for you to drive revenue during slower times. For instance, you may not need the extra business push on Friday night, but perhaps on Tuesday nights, you could use more business. Feel free to utilize this perk to push double the Loyalty points on Tuesday nights.
Remember that Loyalty is integrated across the entire suite of other Toast products -- from Online Ordering and the Local by Toast app -- to all in-store experiences like your Guest Facing Display, Kiosk, Toast Go 2™️, and Mobile Order and Pay™️.
Incentivize your guests to visit you directly.
Identify pockets of opportunity to make Loyalty work for you in other ways. Want to increase your online ordering presence? Turn on a Dining option bonus within your Loyalty settings (shown in the image above) to encourage your guests to revisit YOU directly, time and time again as opposed to other third-party ordering platforms which can get costly for both you and your guests. Prompt your guests to sign up for Loyalty online prior to placing their order on your website. This will give you a higher chance of getting guests locked in and generating higher ROI on your program.
Utilize QR codes for Loyalty signups.
Take advantage of precious real estate at your restaurant to place QR codes to encourage guest enrollment. Some examples could be on table tents, menus, bulletin boards, or at the cashier/host stand if your guests pay there. Check out this free QR code generator to get you started. We've seen some great success in our full-service restaurants promoting their Loyalty program on social media, too!
Emphasize how easy and seamless it is for guests to sign up, accrue, and redeem points with you.
Toast's Loyalty program is specifically designed to be a guest-friendly solution to fit easily into your guest's lives. Guests can determine how they sign up, whether it be through phone number, email – and unlike many other loyalty programs – simply by linking a method of payment! There's no need to carry a punch card or sign in on every visit. If they pay with a linked method of payment, points will automatically be added to their account. Your guest gets to feel special, rewarded, recognized, and accrue savings.
Configure your program based on what makes sense for you.
Loyalty has a ton of optional configurations. You can turn it on the module in seconds, set it, and forget it, or you can customize it based on preferences. Do you want to turn on Birthday rewards? Do you want them to earn cash back? Give away a free item that you typically have excess inventory of (leverage xtraCHEF or our Food Waste Tracker to help inform this)! The choice is yours.
Also, remember that nothing is permanent! Notice your guests' behaviors, see what's working, and adjust for you. Change it at any time with a couple of clicks in Toast Web.
Engage your front of house staff.
Restaurant staff should be the cheerleaders of your loyalty program. Their belief in the program's value is infectious and can encourage customers to participate. You'll only get as many sign-ups as your staff promotes it! Educating customers about the program can happen at the table or a casual mention during service. Check out Get Started with Toast Loyalty and share with your employees to give them a quick overview of how it works. Here's a suggestion: host a front of house contest to see who can get the most Loyalty signups!