Restaurant Marketing
What Is First-Party Guest Data for Restaurants?
First-party guest data is information your guests give you directly — when they book a table, join your loyalty program, order from your menu or sign up for your newsletter — as opposed to data held by a delivery app, a booking platform or an advertising network. It is valuable because it is yours: it lets you recognise regulars, remember an allergy and invite guests back without paying an intermediary. It also comes with duties: collect only what you need, say what you use it for, and respect a guest's choice to stop hearing from you.
First-, second- and third-party data
| Type | Who collects it | Example |
|---|---|---|
| First-party | You, directly from the guest | A reservation, a loyalty sign-up, an order from your own menu |
| Second-party | A partner, who shares its own data with you | A delivery app's report of your orders |
| Third-party | A company with no direct relationship with the guest | Audience lists sold by an advertising network |
What is worth collecting
- A name and one way to reach the guest — when they want to be reached.
- Visit history: when they came, what they ordered, how often.
- Allergies and preferences the guest chooses to tell you, written down so the whole team sees them.
- Whether they agreed to marketing, and when.
Data you collect "just in case" is data you have to protect, explain and eventually delete. If a field would not change how you serve the guest, leave it out.
The rules that apply
In the European Union, the GDPR requires personal data to be collected for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes and limited to what is necessary (Article 5). Processing needs a lawful basis, such as the guest's consent or the performance of a contract — taking a reservation, for example (Article 6) — and a guest may object at any time to their data being used for direct marketing (Article 21).
Marketing email is also covered by e-privacy rules, which generally require the recipient's prior consent, with a narrow exception for a business's own customers who were given a clear and easy way to object when their address was collected and in every message (Directive 2002/58/EC, Article 13). Outside the EU the rules differ, so check the law where you operate.
Using it well
- Recognise regulars: see their visits and what they usually order.
- Keep staff notes for what the guest told you, such as an allergy — and nothing you would not want the guest to read.
- Group guests by behaviour — new, returning, away for a month — and write to each group differently.
- Send fewer, better messages, each with an easy way to unsubscribe.
Where the guest list lives: restaurant CRM, and whether you need one.
The usual reason guests share data: restaurant loyalty programs.
Trust is the asset
Guests share their details with a restaurant they trust, and stop when that trust is broken. Tell them what you keep and why, let them see it or delete it, and never pass it on to others for their own marketing.
First-party guest data with Thmenu
In Thmenu, your loyalty members and the guests who booked with you appear in one Customer Profiles list, with their visits, spend, points and reservations, segments worked out from your own orders, reservations and loyalty records, tags and staff notes, and a CSV export. Guests sign up for your newsletter from your restaurant's pages and confirm by email before they receive anything; campaigns go only to subscribed addresses, and every email carries an unsubscribe link. A guest who signs in to their Thmenu profile can download their data or delete it.
See loyalty in Thmenu.
Sources
- Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (General Data Protection Regulation) — Articles 5, 6 and 21 (accessed 21 October 2026)
- Directive 2002/58/EC on privacy and electronic communications (ePrivacy Directive) — Article 13 (Unsolicited communications) (accessed 7 October 2026)