TasteUK Edinburgh – Restaurant Discovery & Booking Platform

Project Overview

TasteUK was founded by a consortium of Edinburgh's top restaurateurs frustrated by OpenTable's 25% cover fee structure. They needed a credible, branded platform to reclaim direct booking revenue and own their customer relationships.

The Challenge

Edinburgh's restaurant community was collectively paying over £400,000 annually in OpenTable cover fees while surrendering customer data, receiving no marketing support, and building equity in a competitor's platform.

Our Solution

We built a full-featured restaurant discovery and reservation platform purpose-built for the Scottish market:

• Restaurant discovery with cuisine filtering, dietary accommodation search, and curated editorial content
• Real-time table availability booking engine with party size management and deposit collection
• Pre-ordering functionality allowing guests to choose menu items before arriving
• Restaurant management portal with reservation management, no-show protection, and analytics
• Loyalty programme awarding TastePoints redeemable for dining credit across all participating restaurants

Key Results

• 120 Edinburgh and Lothians restaurants onboarded within the first 6 months of launch
• 28,000 covers booked monthly through the platform — completely commission free for restaurants
• Average partner restaurant saves £3,200 per month in eliminated OpenTable cover fees
• Scotland-wide expansion launched to Glasgow, Aberdeen, and St Andrews following Edinburgh success

Technologies Used

PHP 8, MySQL, Stripe, SMS Notifications via Twilio, Google Maps, iCal Restaurant Sync, Tailwind CSS