After First Table and TheFork, the UK now has another company offering restaurant discounts. Its business model is quite unique, and there may even be some interesting ways to use it beyond restaurants. For now, let’s take a first look at EatClub, a mobile app that has just arrived in the UK.
EatClub is an Australian company that only recently entered the UK market and is still very much in the early stages of expansion. In simple terms, EatClub offers discounts at participating restaurants, which doesn’t sound particularly different from its competitors. The key difference is that its whole concept is built around bringing customers into restaurants during off-peak hours:
- Since the discounts are specifically for off-peak periods, no reservation is required
- You don’t need to show anything to the restaurant; the discount is applied automatically when you pay
The second point is particularly interesting. The system works through a service called EatClub Pay, which generates a virtual prepaid card. You link it to your bank card and can then add it to Google Pay or Apple Pay. When you use it to pay, the discounted amount is automatically charged to your underlying bank card.
So the only thing you need to do is find a restaurant in the app and activate the offer. After that, the actual dining experience is completely normal. Pretty seamless.
EatClub currently operates in London, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Bristol and Cardiff. According to the map, there are more than 700 participating restaurants in London alone, with most of them concentrated in central London or Zone 1.
Some restaurants offer discounts all day, while others have specific time restrictions. There is also a limit on the number of redemptions, so if too many people redeem the offer on a particular day, the discount may no longer be available.
I decided to give it a try as soon as I signed up, and it turned out that there was actually a fairly popular lunch spot near my office participating in the programme, with no time restrictions. I happily saved over £4!
So far, it looks extremely useful, and I’d definitely recommend giving it a try.
One thing to note is that, according to the terms and conditions, EatClub discounts cannot be combined with any other offers from the restaurant. If the system detects another discount being used, the EatClub discount will not be applied.
Now for the membership programme. First of all, feel free to sign up using my referral link. After your first successful use, you’ll receive £10 in account credit and unlock the entry-level Citrius membership, which gives you a 5% discount even outside the participating restaurants’ discounted periods.
Spend a certain amount each month and you can upgrade to the higher Saffron or Caviar tiers, which come with additional benefits.
And here’s where things get more interesting: the virtual card issued by EatClub Pay is a Mastercard, but it can also be linked to an American Express card. In other words, you can use it to pay at restaurants that don’t accept Amex and effectively get around that limitation.
Yes, you can also use EatClub Pay at non-participating restaurants, although you obviously won’t receive any discount.
By this point, I know some of you are already thinking about what else this could be used for. However, EatClub Pay does have merchant category restrictions. I just tried using it at Lidl and the payment was declined.
EatClub is currently experimenting with a paid subscription plan that could remove some of these restrictions and potentially open up a lot more possibilities. I’ll do some more digging and report back once I’ve figured out exactly how it works.
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