Email Marketing for Restaurants in 12 Templates
Ali Tanis13 min read
Most email marketing for restaurants fails for a dull reason: the email says "here's our newsletter" and shows nothing worth ordering. Effective restaurant emails land when guests are deciding where to eat, carry one offer or deadline, and lead with a photo of a dish.
Below are 12 email campaigns to copy, each with timing, two subject lines to A/B test, a body outline and an image spec (size, crop, which dish). Most guides show example emails but skip the image, which is what customers click.
Quick Summary: Five automated emails (welcome, bounce-back, birthday, loyalty reward, win-back) plus seven calendar sends cover a year of email marketing for restaurants. Export images at 1200 px wide for a 600 px template, put the words in live text, and judge each email on clicks and redemptions, not opens.
Does email marketing for restaurants still work?
Yes, when an email is triggered by something the guest did, or tied to a dish, a date or a deadline. The monthly blast to everyone is where restaurant email marketing loses. Litmus puts the average return at $36 for every $1 spent, but that is a cross-industry survey of marketers, not data on email marketing for restaurants.
Restaurant results are humbler. MailerLite's benchmark report, published in December 2025 from 3.6 million campaigns, gave restaurant and cafe senders a median click rate of 1.06% and an unsubscribe rate of 0.39%, among the weakest rates of its 46 industries. Generic emails are the norm, so a specific one stands out.
The other lever is the photo. If your phone shots look flat, restaurant food photos made with FoodShot start from your own dish and come back as studio-style images in about a minute.
The 12 restaurant emails at a glance
Five run on autopilot; seven go out by hand. Together they cover email marketing for restaurants end to end, giving new customers, regulars and lapsed customers a different message instead of one blast.
| Timing | Lead image | |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Welcome | Minutes after signup | Signature dish, 2:1 |
| 2. Bounce-back | 3 days after first order | A dish they skipped, 3:2 |
| 3. Birthday | 7 days before | Dessert, 1:1 |
| 4. Loyalty reward | Reward unused 10 days | The reward item, 1:1 |
| 5. Win-back | 60 days, no visit | Two new dishes |
| 6. New dish | 2 days before launch | Close-up + cross-section |
| 7. Seasonal menu | Launch week | Four dishes, one backdrop |
| 8. Holiday pre-order | Nov 2, 17 and 22 | Whole package, overhead |
| 9. Gift card | Nov 27, Dec 14–21 | The dinner it buys |
| 10. Event invite | 3 weeks + 5 days out | Course lineup, 2:1 |
| 11. Catering | Early Oct, early Jan | Tray for 20, overhead |
| 12. Weekly email | Same day, same hour | This week's dish, 3:2 |
Automated emails you set up once
These five email campaigns are the automated core of email marketing for restaurants. Your email tool fires each one when a guest signs up, orders, nears a birthday, earns a reward or goes quiet. Create them once and they keep working.
1. Welcome email
Timing: within minutes of signup.
Test: "Your first dessert is on us" vs "Welcome to [Name]: what regulars order first"
Image: 1200×600 px header (2:1), your best-selling dish at 45°, the plate filling the middle 60% so a narrow screen can't crop it.
Body: who you are in one line, three dishes regulars order, and the signup gift with an expiry date. Save the founding story for email two.
Charred half chicken with salsa verde shot at 45 degrees and centred with even margins, a welcome email header photo
2. Second-visit bounce-back
Timing: 3 days after the first order, offer valid 14 days.
Test: "Come back this week: fries on the house" vs "You tried the burger. Next, the short rib?"
Image: 1200×800 px (3:2), overhead, of a dish they didn't order, for example a high-margin side or dessert.
Body: thanks, one dish they missed, a deadline for the next visit. Subject B needs order data from your POS.
3. Birthday offer
Timing: 7 days before the birthday, so they can book.
Test: "Your birthday dessert is waiting" vs "Pick a night this week. Dessert's on us"
Image: 600×600 px square shown at 300 px beside the offer: one slice of your best cake with a lit candle, tight crop, dark background.
Body: the gift, how many guests it covers, how to claim it. Ask for birth month and day at signup, never the year.
Dark chocolate cake slice with one lit gold candle on a black plate, a tight crop for a restaurant birthday email
4. Loyalty reward reminder
Timing: 10 days after a reward goes unredeemed, and 5 days before it expires.
Test: "Your free entrée expires Friday" vs "You earned this. Use it by Friday"
Image: 600×600 px of the exact reward item, shot straight on, so loyal customers see what "free" looks like.
Body: rewards balance, expiry, one button. Still picking a loyalty program? Compare these loyalty program types first; each program needs different rewards emails.
5. Win-back
Timing: 60 days with no visit, a stronger offer at 90 days, then stop.
Test: "We changed a few things since your last visit" vs "It's been a while. Here's $10 toward dinner"
Image: two 600×600 px tiles of dishes added since their last visit, shot on one surface.
Body: what's new, a dollar offer with a deadline, an easy unsubscribe. Customers who ignore both leave the active email list; mailing them hurts delivery.
Miso-glazed eggplant and crispy-skin trout side by side on one terrazzo surface, two new dishes for a win-back email
Calendar emails you send by hand
These seven campaigns follow your menu and the calendar, the hand-built half of email marketing for restaurants. Put them in your restaurant marketing plan a month ahead so the photos exist before sending day.
6. New dish launch
Timing: 2 days before the dish hits the menu, so subscribers hear first.
Test: "New on Thursday: brown-butter scallops" vs "Subscribers see it first"
Image: 1200×800 px close-up at 45°, plus a 1200×600 px cross-section showing the cut, the layers or the cheese pull.
Body: name, flavor line, price, launch day. Write it like your menu descriptions: ingredients and method, not adjectives.
Beef Wellington sliced to show pink tenderloin, mushroom duxelles and pastry layers, a cross-section shot for a new dish email
7. Seasonal menu drop
Timing: the week the menu changes, on a Tuesday or Wednesday.
Test: "Four new plates for colder nights" vs "The winter menu starts Friday"
Image: a 2×2 grid of 600×600 px tiles, four dishes on one backdrop with one light direction, so it reads as a menu, not a collage.
Body: one line per dish, start date, booking link. Still choosing dishes? These winter menu ideas come with food costs.
8. Holiday pre-order
Timing: based on the cutoff. For Thanksgiving on November 26, 2026: announce November 2, remind November 17, last call November 22, orders close November 23.
Test: "Thanksgiving, cooked. Order by Nov 23" vs "Skip the dishes this year: 40 dinners left" (use your real count)
Image: 1200×800 px overhead of the whole package as it leaves the kitchen: turkey, sides and pie in the containers guests carry home.
Body: contents, servings, price, pickup windows and the cutoff in bold. Our Thanksgiving food styles give the spread a holiday table, and the holiday sales plan maps the season's other promotions.
Overhead of a Thanksgiving pre-order package in takeout containers: sliced turkey, sides, cranberry and pumpkin pie
9. Gift card push
Timing: Black Friday (November 27), then December 14 to 21 for customers buying late.
Test: "The gift that ends with dessert" vs "Buy $100, get a $20 bonus card"
Image: 1200×600 px of the dinner the card buys, a table for two mid-meal, not the card itself.
Body: the bonus, the deadline, delivery by email. These gift card promotion ideas keep bonus offers from wrecking January margins, and the Christmas food styles cover the December image.
10. Chef dinner or event invite
Timing: 3 weeks out for the invite, 5 days out for a last-seats reminder.
Test: "Five courses, one night, 40 seats" vs "Dinner with our chef on December 10"
Image: a wide 1200×600 px lineup of the set menu's courses in serving order along the pass.
Body: date, courses, price per seat, ticket link. Before sending the reminder, remove everyone who already bought.
Five tasting menu courses in serving order receding along a chef counter, the course lineup photo for an event invite email
11. Catering push
Timing: early October for holiday parties, early January for office lunches.
Test: "Lunch for 20, delivered by 11:45" vs "Your holiday party, catered"
Image: 1200×800 px overhead of a spread for 20, serving tongs and plates in frame for scale.
Body: price per person, minimum order, lead time, quote form. Mail only your catering customers, for example business addresses and past event orders. Our catering photos page covers tray shots.
12. Weekly specials email
Timing: the same weekday and hour, every week. One owner on r/restaurantowners described a Tuesday newsletter with the week's specials, live music and events.
Test: "This week: braised lamb and live jazz Thursday" vs "3 reasons to skip cooking on Wednesday"
Image: one 1200×800 px shot of this week's dish, photographed the day it's made, plus a 600×600 px tile per extra item.
Body: the dish, the slow night to fill, the offer. Rotate offers from these restaurant promotions and reuse the photos on table tents with these food flyer ideas.
Braised lamb shank on soft polenta with gremolata on a steel kitchen pass, this week's special for a weekly restaurant email
Image specs for restaurant emails
Most email templates are 600 to 640 px wide, so export photos at 1200 px to stay sharp on retina screens, and hold each file under about 200 KB. It's the part of email marketing for restaurants most guides skip.
| Slot | Export | Shows at | Crop | Max file |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Header | 1200×600 px | 600×300 | 2:1, dish centred | 200 KB |
| Feature | 1200×800 px | 600×400 | 3:2, 45° | 200 KB |
| Two-up tile | 600×600 px | 290×290 | 1:1, overhead | 100 KB |
| Side image | 600×600 px | 300×300 | 1:1, straight on | 100 KB |
Some Outlook versions block images until the reader allows them, so the alt text should name the dish. Words baked into an image vanish with it. And the photo must show the plate as served: a dish that arrives looking different is a complaint, not a sale.
Upload a phone photo of the real dish to FoodShot to create a 2K image (2048 px) in about a minute, wide enough for any slot above. My Styles saves your look from an existing menu photo, so March's welcome header and November's holiday email look like one restaurant. Pick a look from the food photo styles; plans start at $15 for 25 photos, enough for every image slot in the 12 templates. These phone food photos tips give a better starting shot, and restaurant branding covers the colors and type around it.
How do you build a restaurant email list?
Email marketing for restaurants only works on people who asked for it, so build the email list where customers already hand you details, and give a reason on the spot. Never buy a list.
- Orders and bookings: an unticked opt-in box with the reason beside it.
- Guest Wi-Fi: an email field on the login page.
- Check presenter: a QR card that tells customers what subscribers get.
- Catering inquiries: a separate segment, based on what they ordered.
Open leather check presenter with a small QR signup card and pen beside an espresso, building a restaurant email list
In the US, the FTC's CAN-SPAM rules cover every marketing email: an honest From line and subject, your postal address, and a working opt-out honored within 10 business days. Each email that breaks them can cost up to $53,088.
How do you keep restaurant emails out of spam?
Deliverability is the quiet half of email marketing for restaurants. Mail from your own domain, not a Gmail address, with SPF and DKIM configured. Google's Gmail guidelines require SPF or DKIM and a spam rate under 0.3% from everyone; at 5,000 or more messages a day to Gmail, you also need DMARC and one-click unsubscribe.
Then keep the email list clean. Remove hard bounces at once, and drop subscribers who haven't clicked in six months after the win-back fails. A smaller list that clicks beats a big one that complains.
What should you measure?
Measure clicks and redemptions, not opens. Since Apple's Mail Privacy Protection arrived in 2021, Apple Mail preloads images for many readers, which logs an open whether anyone looked or not.
Create one offer code or link per email so your POS ties covers and orders back to it. MailerLite's restaurant and cafe median is a 1.06% click rate, so a weekly email at 2% to 3% is effective. If one template's unsubscribes run well above 0.39%, its offer or frequency is wrong. That is the honest scoreboard for email marketing for restaurants: covers and orders.
Start with emails 1, 2 and 12 this week. Our restaurant marketing ideas cover the channels around email.
Frequently Asked Questions
How often should a restaurant send marketing emails?
Two to four one-time campaigns a month, on top of the automated ones, suits most independents. A weekly email alone fills that, so a holiday email should replace a weekly one, not stack on it.
What is the best time to send restaurant emails?
There is no universal hour. Run the weekly email at 10 a.m. for four weeks and 2 p.m. for the next four, then keep the hour with more redemptions.
What size should images be in a restaurant email?
Use 1200 px wide for a 600 px template: 1200×600 for a header, 600×600 for grid tiles, each under about 200 KB, with the dish named in the alt text.
Do I need special software for email marketing for restaurants?
Any email tool with signup forms, automations and segments can run all 12 templates; pick one that connects to your POS and ordering system. Our restaurant marketing software guide compares options.