foodbooking.uk

What It Is

Food Booking is an online ordering system for restaurants, takeaway shops, and dine-in businesses. Its main selling point is “no commission, no joining fee, and no hidden fees.” It helps merchants take orders through their own website, Facebook, mobile channels, and table-side dine-in scenarios. In positioning, it is more of a complement or alternative to platforms such as Just Eat and Deliveroo: marketplaces help acquire new customers, while a merchant-owned ordering channel helps reduce long-term commission costs.

Core Features and Integrations

The default feature set covers website ordering, Dine-In table ordering, Facebook ordering, table reservations, opening/delivery hours, pre-orders, hotel room ordering, delivery zones, offline payments, customer and restaurant mobile apps, basic promotions, missed-order alerts, automatic order acceptance, and receipt printing. Plans also include services such as menu import, integration of the website ordering widget, adding a Facebook button, Google Business Profile-related setup/sync, and SSL certificates. Online payment is available as an add-on, supporting Stripe, Braintree, Worldpay, and Authorize.net; the main text also mentions Adyen.

Pricing and Business Model

PRO costs £19.95/month; PRO + Site Builder is listed at £29.95/month and is currently promoted at £19.95/month. The official messaging emphasizes that there is no commission charged per order, which can offer good value for restaurants with stable order volume. However, many important capabilities require paid add-ons: Advanced Promotion at £19/month, Online Payment at £30/month, Instant Website Builder at £9/month, Branded App at £59/month, and Automated Marketing charged at 10% per order. Multi-location businesses also need to purchase add-ons per location.

Ease of Use, Support, and Security

The product is suitable for small merchants with limited technical capacity. PRO includes hands-on support, and merchants can request changes to menus, promotions, delivery zones, images, and reports via tickets, or manage them directly through the restaurant manager control panel. However, the pages do not explain fine-grained team permissions, approval workflows, or multi-role management. On security, the only clearly stated provision is an SSL certificate; there is no disclosure around GDPR, PCI, backups, audits, or similar topics. APIs, webhooks, and self-hosted deployment are also not described.

Pros, Cons, and Who It’s For

The advantages are fixed monthly pricing, comprehensive ordering channels, and support for assisted setup. It can run alongside delivery platforms and help merchants build up their own direct-order base. The downsides are numerous add-on fees, some repetitive page copy with only average information quality, and limited transparency around enterprise-grade permissions, security, and developer capabilities. It is best suited to UK local food businesses, takeaway shops, dine-in restaurants, and small to midsize merchants looking to divert part of their sales away from platform commissions.

Access from China and Alternatives

Access from China cannot be determined from the main text, and the supported payment providers are mostly overseas systems. For domestic Chinese merchants, deployment may be constrained by network access, payment collection, and local delivery ecosystems. If the target market is primarily China, it is worth comparing Meituan Waimai, Ele.me, as well as more localized restaurant digitalization solutions such as Youzan and Weimob.