The whole operating cost behind a headline price. TableSpark plans and pricing →
Many tools, each quoted cheaply, can add up to a year-one bill nobody planned for, once commission and per-cover fees land. This guide adds up every line, with sources.
Software charged per site, per terminal and per head can multiply the cost of a second lease, while the guest list splits in two. Here is what to price and check before site two opens.
Published estimates of what it costs to open a UK restaurant vary enormously and cite no dataset. This guide builds a first-year budget line by line from official rates.
The Budget is on 28 October 2026, and the wage rate, VAT and rates detail are still unpublished. Owners risk repricing on lobbying headlines and missing the costs already fixed for 2027.
Headlines say the multiplier fell by about 12p in the pound. A restaurant that lost its 40% relief still faces a higher bill, phased in over three years, and the cost of that delay depends on its rateable value.
You have been quoted for an app and nobody has said what happens after launch. Here is the full cost of three routes, and the one guests can install from your own site.
Menu, hours and a number to tap go live first. Collection orders come with a move to Full; paying up front by card adds Stripe's fee per order.
A no-show leaves no invoice and no ticket, only covers missing from a total nobody checks against the diary. Four figures already in the building price what it costs.
A dated rise in the statutory wage floor landed in April; the menu did not move with it. Whatever that cost on this owner's payroll has been foregone on covers already served.
A module switched on during onboarding costs the same every month whether it runs at every service or has never been opened, and the invoice never says which.
The minutes spent answering the phone mid-service arrive with no invoice, so that labour goes unpriced. The wage floor under the hour rose on 1 April 2026.
The rate on a merchant agreement is not the whole of a card bill. The scheme fees beneath it are set elsewhere, and the regulator has found them rising without competition.
