Push is the cheapest way a restaurant has to generate an order. No ad auction, no 30% commission, no fee per message. The catch is that every bad push spends a little trust, and once someone mutes your app you've lost them for good. So the messages below all do the same job: give the customer a concrete reason to open the app right now instead of another slogan. Take them, swap in your own dishes, and send them from your branded app.
Hunger-window pushes: catch people deciding
1. “It's 11:40. The lunch question answers itself: chicken shawarma, ready in 25 min. →”
Send: 11:30–11:45 on weekdays, to customers whose past orders skew lunch.
2. “Friday. You cooked all week. You didn't, but let's pretend — pizza's on us to deliver.”
Send: Friday 17:00–17:30, your biggest decision window of the week.
3. “Sunday scaries pair well with pad thai. Kitchen closes at 21:00.”
Send: Sunday ~18:30. The closing time adds real urgency without a fake countdown.
4. “Game starts at 20:00. Wings ordered by 18:45 arrive before kickoff. Just saying.”
Send: 2–3 hours before a big local game. Sports calendars are free marketing calendars.
Reorder pushes: the highest ROI in the app
5. “Your usual? Double cheeseburger, sweet potato fries, one tap and it's moving.”
Send on each customer's own ordering rhythm: if they order every 9 days, send on day 9, around the hour they usually do.
6. “The salmon poke you ordered twice last month is back from its weekend off.”
Send: the moment an item a customer ordered 2+ times returns to stock.
7. “New on the menu: birria ramen. You liked the birria tacos — this is that, but soup.”
Send: on menu launch, only to people who ordered the related item. Relevance beats reach.
8. “You left a cart with the truffle pasta in it. It's still here. The pasta is patient. You're hungry.”
Send: 25–45 minutes after cart abandonment, while the appetite that built the cart still exists. Full playbook in our abandoned cart guide.
Money-on-the-table pushes: their balance, not your promo
9. “You have $6.40 cashback. It expires Friday. That's a free dessert doing nothing.”
Send 3–4 days before the cashback expires. One of the best performers you'll run, because it's the customer's own money.
10. “Happy birthday week! A free brownie is sitting in your cart until Sunday. 🎂”
Send: 3 days before the birthday, morning. Birthday orders rarely come alone.
11. “You're $18 away from Gold: 12% cashback and free delivery all quarter.”
Send: when a customer is within one average order of the next loyalty tier.
12. “Give a friend $5 off their first order, get $5 when they use it. Your link's inside.”
Send: right after a 5-star rating or a completed 3rd order — the moment goodwill peaks.
Moment pushes: weather, news, and slow Tuesdays
13. “It's pouring. Stay in. Ramen weather is not a marketing concept, it's a fact.”
Send: when the forecast shows rain over your delivery zone at dinner time.
14. “Tuesday special, app only: any two rolls + miso for $14. Today, then it's gone.”
Send: Tuesday ~16:00. Fence the deal to your slowest day and your own channel.
15. “Heatwave menu: cold noodles, iced matcha, zero oven involvement. We suffer so you don't.”
Send: when temperature crosses ~90°F. Weather triggers can be fully automated.
Win-back pushes: the 30% who drifted off
16. “It's been a month. The khachapuri asked about you. We said you'd call.”
Send: 30 days after last order, once. Personality works when the customer already knows you.
17. “We miss you, so: 15% off this week, no minimum. After that we go back to playing hard to get.”
Send: 60 days after last order. Save the actual discount for the second attempt — many lapsed customers return for #16 free.
Marcy, our marketing AI assistant, writes, targets, and schedules them — generating $5,000+/mo for restaurants on Dots.
The rules that keep the channel alive
Keep it to two or three pushes a week per customer, and honestly one is plenty. The opt-out you trigger with a fourth push this week costs you every order that push would ever have earned. Aim before you fire, too. Send the wings push to a vegan and they learn to tune you out; the numbered examples above only pay off when they land on the right order history, which is what segment-based campaigns are built for. Timing matters as much as targeting. 11:40 and 17:30 beat a 9 a.m. blast every time, because that's when people actually decide what to eat. And watch orders, not opens: your analytics should tie revenue back to each campaign, or you're just decorating lock screens.
Worth remembering: none of this exists unless people install your app. A listing on a marketplace gives you no way to reach anyone directly. Restaurants on Dots see their branded apps turn up to 35% of visitors into buyers, and each of those buyers is then reachable at $0 per message for as long as they keep the app. That gap is the whole reason to own the channel yourself.
If you do one thing this week, set up examples #5 and #9 as automated triggers: the reorder rhythm and the expiring cashback. Two messages, no ongoing effort, and they'll probably outsell every manual blast you sent last quarter.
Branded app, automated campaigns, and an AI that writes them — live in about two weeks.