Empty Tables Tonight? Fill Them Fast with One Text.
The Done-With-You SMS System for restaurant and bar owners. We write your campaigns together, guide you through carrier compliance, you hit send. Start seeing results fast.
- We write your campaigns + guide you through A2P compliance (step by step)
- Fill slow Tuesday nights, boost happy hour traffic, pack your events
- Most people read a text within 5 minutes* (your last email is still sitting there)
*Consumer survey data, not Hermes customer results. 72% of consumers say they read business texts within five minutes (EZ Texting, 2026 Consumer Texting Behavior Report, 959 US consumers). Separately, 82% say they check their texts generally within five minutes (SimpleTexting, 2025, survey of 1,000 US consumers). Those are two different questions and we keep them apart. Surveys measure what people say they do. SMS has no read receipt, so nobody can measure an open rate.
The Restaurant Marketing Problem Nobody Talks About
You spent years perfecting your menu. You hired great staff. Your regulars love you. But here's what keeps you up at night:
The Slow Night Death Spiral
Tuesday through Thursday, your dining room is half-empty. You're paying the same rent, same utilities, same labor costs. But instead of 200 covers, you're doing 80. Every empty table is $75-$150 walking out the door. You've tried Instagram posts. You've tried Facebook ads. You've tried Groupon (and hated the customers it brought). Nothing fills those seats consistently.
Email is Dead (And You Know It)
Your email list of 3,000 customers? Only 600 opened your last 'Happy Hour Special' email. And of those 600, maybe 15 actually showed up. That's a 0.5% conversion rate. For an email that took you 2 hours to write.
Events Nobody Knows About
You booked an amazing jazz trio for Friday night. You put it on your website. You posted on social media. Attendance? 12 people. Your regular Friday crowd, minus a few who stayed home because they thought it would be 'too crowded.' You spent $800 on the band. Made $900 in sales. After food cost and labor? You lost money on an 'event.'
Regulars Who Disappeared
Remember Mike and Sarah? Used to come every Saturday for three years. Then they stopped. You don't know why. They didn't complain. They just vanished. You have 200 customers like Mike and Sarah. People who loved your restaurant, then drifted away. You have no way to reach them that actually works.
Every empty table on a slow night is money that's gone for good. Run your own math: empty seats on your slowest night, times your average ticket, times how many nights a month it happens. It adds up fast. Your competitors who figure out how to fill slow nights? They're hiring your best servers.
What If Your Customers Actually SAW Your Messages?
Your customers aren't ignoring you because your offers are bad. They're ignoring you because they never SEE your messages. Think about your own phone. You read your texts within a few minutes. Your unread email count is somewhere north of a thousand. Same message, same offer, completely different odds it gets seen.
Slow Night Filler
Turn your slowest night into a predictable revenue stream
[Your Restaurant Name] Tuesday just got interesting. Chef's testing 3 new dishes for the spring menu. First 30 guests tonight get to vote on which ones make the cut. Plus: $5 glasses of the wine we're pairing. Reply STOP to opt out
Event Promoter
Pack your events with actual attendees (not just Instagram likes)
[Your Restaurant Name] Live jazz Friday 8pm. Full band. No cover. Last month we hit capacity by 8:30. Reserve a table: [link] Reply STOP to opt out
Win-Back Campaign
Bring back the regulars who disappeared
[Your Restaurant Name] Hey [First Name], It's been a while. We just added craft cocktails to happy hour (finally). Your usual table is waiting. This week: first round on us. Reply STOP to opt out
Let's Do the Math on One Slow Tuesday
The stats above come from published consumer surveys (SimpleTexting, 2025; EZ Texting, 2026 Consumer Texting Behavior Report), not Hermes customer results. They measure what people say they do, not what we delivered for anyone. The before and after below is an illustrative example, not a customer result. Your numbers will be your own.
Before SMS Marketing
- ✗Monday email: 'Happy Hour Special This Week!'
- ✗3,000 people on the list, and no honest way to know how many read it
- ✗Time spent: 2 hours writing and designing
- ✗A handful of walk-ins, and the effort barely paid for itself
After SMS Marketing
- ✓Monday text: 'Happy hour starts in 2 hours. First 20 customers: apps half off.'
- ✓1,000 people on the list, and most of them read it the same afternoon
- ✓Time spent: 30 seconds to hit send, because we wrote the message with you
- ✓Walk-ins you can count, from a message you know landed
Illustrative math, not a customer result. Run it with your own numbers: your list, a modest response rate, your average ticket.
1,000 people x 4% who show up x $75 a table = $3,000 from one text
From Sign-Up to Full Tables in 4 Simple Steps
Account setup happens during your onboarding call. A2P carrier verification takes 2-3 weeks (required by carriers -- we guide you through the registration). You'll be ready to send within 3-4 weeks of signing up.
Strategy Call To Learn Your Business
We get on a call and learn your restaurant. Your slow nights. Your events. Your customer base. Your goals. This isn't a sales call. It's a working session where we map out your SMS strategy.
We Import & Organize Your Contacts
Send us your customer list (from your POS, reservation system, or wherever you have it). We handle the import, clean duplicates, and organize by last visit date, visit frequency, and preferences.
We Write Your First 3 Campaigns
Based on our strategy call, we write your Slow Night Filler, Event Promoter, and Win-Back campaigns. You review, approve, and we're ready to send.
You Hit Send, Tables Fill Up
When you're ready, log into Hermes (takes 30 seconds to learn). Select the campaign. Hit send. Then watch your phone light up with reservation requests.
Your 90-Day Restaurant & Bar SMS Marketing System
Everything you need to launch SMS marketing: set up for you, written for you, ready to send.
What You Get:
90-Day "Keep Everything" Guarantee:
Two outcomes, both good for you: either you see fuller seats, more regulars, better event turnout, or you get 100% back AND keep $1,850 of campaign work we did together, no questions asked. You literally cannot lose. Try it, or keep wondering.
Questions Restaurant Owners Ask Before Signing Up
How is this different from Mailchimp or Constant Contact?
Those are email tools. Your customers don't check email at 5pm wondering where to eat. They check their phones, and surveys say most people read a text within five minutes. Email can't tell you much either. An email 'open' is a tracking pixel, and Apple loads it whether or not a human ever looked, so that open rate in your dashboard is softer than it looks. Plus, we write your messages WITH you. Mailchimp gives you a blank screen and says 'good luck.'
I tried SMS marketing before and it didn't work. Why would this be different?
Most restaurant owners who try SMS fail for 3 reasons: (1) They don't know what to write (we write it with you), (2) They blast everyone with the same generic message (we help you segment), (3) They give up after 2 campaigns (we give you 90 days and a strategy). The platform isn't the problem. The strategy is. That's why we include the strategy call and done-with-you campaigns.
How long does it take to see results?
SMS is fast. You send at 4pm, customers can walk in at 7pm. The setup takes about 3 weeks (mostly waiting for carrier verification, which is required by law). But once you're live, the feedback loop is same-day. You send at 4pm and you know by dinner service whether anybody moved. We won't promise you a number, because we're onboarding our first restaurants right now and any number we gave you would be somebody's guess. What we'll promise is that you'll be able to see exactly what went out, what got delivered, and who replied.
What if my customers don't want to receive texts?
This is actually a feature, not a bug. People who opt in to your SMS list WANT to hear from you. They're your most engaged customers. Unlike email where people sign up for a discount and ignore you forever, SMS subscribers are actively choosing to receive your messages. Quality over quantity.
Is this legal? I've heard about SMS compliance issues.
Great question. SMS marketing is heavily regulated, and most restaurants get it wrong. We guide you through all the compliance: A2P 10DLC registration (required by carriers since 2021), TCPA compliance (the federal law governing text messages), opt-out management (every message includes 'Reply STOP to opt out'), and consent tracking. If you try to do SMS yourself without proper registration, your messages get blocked or filtered. Our setup walks you through every step so your messages actually deliver.
What happens after the 90 days?
You choose: Option A: Continue for $250/month with 3,000 messages included. Cancel anytime, no contracts. Option B: Cancel with zero obligation. Keep the campaigns we wrote. Keep your contact list. No hard feelings. And if you got in as a founding member, you keep 20% off for as long as you stay. That's $200/month today, locked for life. We're not going to tell you what most restaurants decide, because you'd be one of the first. You'll have 90 days of your own numbers by then, and that's a better argument than anything we could write here.
Stop Watching Empty Tables. Start Filling Them.
Every day you wait, another slow night passes. Another event undersells. Another regular forgets about you. Texting changes the math. Most people read a text within five minutes. Delivery confirmed the same afternoon. Customers who actually see your messages. We write your messages. We handle the carrier paperwork. You click send.