TCPA · By industry
TCPA compliance for restaurant SMS marketing
TCPA compliance for a restaurant means the signup surfaces behind your SMS marketing, the loyalty program, the 'text JOIN for 10% off' promo, the online-ordering and reservation forms, capture prior express written consent before a single promotional text goes out, because the Telephone Consumer Protection Act prices every marketing text at $500 to $1,500, with no cap. Complidar checks the consent language and disclosures on every phone-collecting form on your site, the same surface a plaintiff's firm screenshots first.
The exposure is per text, times your list
The number that matters is not a headline verdict, it is the multiplication. Statutory damages run $500 per negligent violation and up to $1,500 per willful one, with no cap, and every marketing message sent on defective consent is its own violation. A restaurant group with a 40,000-subscriber list texting a weekly special is more than two million sends a year, so a single consent defect in how that list was collected is theoretical exposure in the hundreds of millions before a class is even argued. That is why the signup form on your site, not the texting platform, is where these cases are won and lost.
Class-action outcomes only show the ceiling that math reaches. As a scale illustration, not a typical result, Wakefield v. ViSalus produced a $925M jury verdict at statutory rates across roughly 1.8 million messages. The realistic framing for a restaurant is the per-text figure against your own list size, not that number. The point is that a texting program hits class size fast, because every promotional message is a violation candidate.
Order-ready texts and marketing texts are not the same thing
This is the distinction that decides a restaurant's exposure, and it is easy to blur. A transactional text, 'your table is ready,' 'your order is out for delivery,' 'you are next on the waitlist,' is a service message the customer asked for by placing the order, and it does not need the marketing-consent standard. A promotional text, 'half-price apps tonight,' 'show this text for a free dessert,' is marketing, and it needs prior express written consent. The trap is drift: a phone number captured to send an order-ready alert, then later used to push a Friday promotion, is now marketing sent on consent that never covered it. A scan cannot read your send logs, but it can show whether the form that collected the number disclosed marketing use at all.
Where restaurants collect consent wrong
Marketing texts require prior express written consent: a clear disclosure that the person agrees to receive automated marketing messages, that consent is not a condition of any purchase, with an affirmative act tied to that disclosure. A pre-checked box is not valid consent. Restaurants break this in a small set of repeatable ways, all of them visible from outside:
- A pre-checked SMS opt-in box on an online-ordering or reservation form, which is a dark pattern and a consent defect at once
- A 'text JOIN for 10% off' or loyalty-signup field with no disclosure that the number will be used for automated marketing texts
- Phone capture bundled into the online-ordering or reservation flow so SMS consent is not separable from the order, with no 'consent is not a condition of purchase' language
- A loyalty or waitlist program texting promotions to numbers collected for order-status or waitlist alerts, so the consent on file does not cover marketing use
- Missing the disclosures that belong at signup: the program name, message frequency, a 'msg & data rates may apply' note, and STOP/HELP instructions
What the scan checks here
- Every form that collects a phone number across ordering, reservation, loyalty, and waitlist pages, up to 120 pages
- Express-written-consent disclosure presence and proximity to the SMS opt-in field
- Pre-checked SMS consent boxes on ordering, reservation, and loyalty signups (a dark pattern and a consent defect at once)
- 'Consent is not a condition of purchase' language where the opt-in is bundled into the ordering or reservation flow
- Program name, message-frequency, 'msg & data rates', and STOP/HELP disclosures where a 'text JOIN' or loyalty texting program is advertised
- Privacy-policy consistency: does the phone-number section match what the ordering, reservation, and loyalty forms actually collect
Honest limits: A scan verifies the consent capture your site presents: what the SMS opt-in says, whether the box is pre-checked, which disclosures appear at signup. It cannot see your texting platform's send logs, your consent database, or whether a number collected for an order-ready alert later received a promotion, which is the line between a transactional text and a marketing one. Those are records questions for counsel. The scan settles what the form said when the number was collected, which is where most TCPA disputes start, and the report says so rather than implying a clean form equals a clean program.
Common questions
Do our order-ready and 'your table is ready' texts need marketing consent?
No. A text the customer asked for by placing an order or joining the waitlist, order status, delivery updates, 'you are next', is a transactional service message and does not need the written-marketing-consent standard. The marketing standard kicks in the moment you text a promotion. The risk is drift: when a number collected for order alerts starts receiving specials, the consent on file no longer matches the message. The scan flags forms whose disclosure doesn't cover marketing use.
We use a third-party ordering or loyalty platform that sends the texts. Doesn't it handle consent?
The platform sends the messages and stores the opt-ins, but the consent itself is captured by the form on your site, and the demand letter names your restaurant, not the platform. If the opt-in box is pre-checked, or the disclosure is missing, or marketing consent is bundled into the order, the defect is in your page. Complidar scans the forms your customers actually fill in, embedded ordering and reservation widgets included.
Is a 'text JOIN for 10% off' promo enough on its own?
Only if it is paired with a clear disclosure: automated marketing texts, consent not a condition of purchase, with program name, frequency, message-and-data-rates, and STOP/HELP noted. A pre-checked box, or consent bundled into the ordering flow so it cannot be declined separately, is not valid express written consent. Damages are $500 to $1,500 per text with no cap, so exposure scales with how many people joined, not with any one verdict. The scan checks the opt-in state and the disclosure text together.
All 22 checks · up to 120 pages · no card
Last updated 2026-06-28 · Informational, not legal advice: how to read this