Memberships Turn Restaurants Into Clubs
Chris Webb, CEO of ChowNow, on the new restaurant stack
Restaurant memberships matter because they turn a business built on one off meals into one with prepaid demand and a direct customer list. ChowNow already tested a simple version in 2020 where diners paid about $100 up front for a year of discounts, and the broader restaurant software stack is increasingly built to support that kind of repeat behavior through ordering, loyalty, email, and push notifications rather than just one time transactions.
-
The appeal is cash flow and retention. Gift cards create lumpy redemption risk, but a membership spreads the benefit across many future orders. That gives restaurants money up front, then pulls members back into more frequent pickup and delivery orders over time.
-
The hard part is packaging benefits people will actually pay for. A generic discount is easy to copy and can erode margins. The stronger version looks more like a local club, with reserved happy hour access, special menu drops, events, or priority treatment that feels tied to the restaurant’s brand and neighborhood.
-
This fits a bigger shift in restaurant software. Platforms like ChowNow, Lunchbox, and Owner are all trying to help restaurants own the customer relationship on their own website and app, because once the restaurant has direct ordering and marketing, memberships become one more monetization layer on top.
The next step is likely a move from basic discounts to software managed fan clubs for the best local restaurants. As restaurant stacks bundle ordering, loyalty, CRM, and marketing into one system, memberships can become a real recurring revenue line and a way for independents to build the kind of habitual customer behavior that chains and aggregators already capture at scale.