Why regulars matter more than new guests

Most restaurant marketing chases new guests: a new listing, an influencer, a promotion on a delivery app. New guests matter. But the research on restaurant spending keeps pointing at the same thing. The guests who are already coming back are worth far more than most owners give them credit for.

A small group carries the business

Toast and Resy’s Regulars Report 2026 found that only 7% of a restaurant’s guests are multi-visit guests, and that this group can generate up to half of total order volume. Resy’s reservation data from seven US cities adds detail on how they behave: regulars book ahead (83% of their visits are reserved, against 48% for other guests), and in the survey 77% said they tip more where they are regulars.

What a regular is worth

Bloom Intelligence calculated in its 2025 retention study that a guest who visited once was worth about $26, while a regular was worth about $685 over their lifetime. Those are US dollar figures from one platform and an estimate, not an invoice. The ratio is the point: one regular can be worth more than twenty single visits.

The general business research says the same. Harvard Business Review summarised it in 2014: depending on the study, winning a new customer costs five to 25 times more than keeping an existing one, and research by Frederick Reichheld of Bain & Company showed that increasing retention by 5% increases profits by 25% to 95%.

Why it matters more in the Netherlands right now

Dutch hospitality is earning more but keeping less. Statistics Netherlands (CBS) reported that horeca turnover grew 3.9% in 2025, and restaurants grew 3.7% in the last quarter of the year. At the same time, costs have been rising faster.

An analysis by ABN AMRO and Hotelschool The Hague found that producer prices for food and drinks rose 17% and 20% since 2022, while collective wages rose 22%. CBS counted 199 restaurant bankruptcies in 2023, and the bank expected that number to roughly double in 2025.

When margins are thin, a guest you already won is the cheapest revenue you can get. You do not pay a platform commission for them, you do not pay for an ad to reach them, and they already know what to order.

How regulars are made

Nobody becomes a regular on the first visit. It happens on the second and third. With most first-time guests never returning, the time right after that first visit is where regulars are won or lost.

What helps, according to the same Toast and Resy survey:

• Recognition. 48% of guests said being remembered makes them feel most valued.
• Consistency. Of diners who stopped visiting a favourite place, 43% pointed to a gradual decline, with food quality (31%), prices (22%) and service (15%) as the main reasons.
• A reason to return. A clear offer for the next visit works better than a complicated points scheme. Over half of diners said they had left a loyalty program because rewards were too hard to earn or not worth it.

The takeaway

New guests fill the room once. Regulars fill it every week. If you only measure covers and revenue, you cannot see which of the two you are building. Start by measuring your guest return rate, and give every first-time guest a personal reason to come back. That is exactly what Seeya puts on the receipt.