Email subject lines for a restaurant, tested

A guest's inbox on a Thursday evening holds forty unread emails: a parcel update, two newsletters, a bank statement, a dozen offers and, somewhere in the middle, your restaurant's email about the new autumn menu. Whether they open it depends almost entirely on a few words. Email subject lines are the smallest piece of writing a venue does, and they decide whether everything else gets read.

Most restaurant subject lines are written last, in a hurry, after the email itself: "Our October newsletter", "News from the bistro", "Don't miss out!". They are easy to ignore because they say nothing specific. The subject lines that work for restaurants tend to share a few habits: they are short, specific, honest and sound like a person, and they promise something the guest might actually want.

This guide covers what a subject line has to do, twelve kinds that tend to work and four that tend not to, what to copy from them, and how to test your own when open rates can no longer be trusted. The examples are illustrations of each shape, not results from a test. Every venue and figure in it is an example.

A subject line has one job: to get the guests who would enjoy the email to open it. It does that by telling them, in a few words, what is inside and why it matters to them. It is a promise, and the email must keep it.

It does not need to be clever. In a crowded inbox, clarity beats wit. "The lamb shoulder is back" tells a regular who loves it exactly why to open the email. A clever pun about autumn may make the writer smile, but it gives the guest no reason to stop scrolling.

Most guests read email on a phone, in a list where each message gets one line. Often only the first thirty or forty characters of the subject show before it is cut off. The opening words carry almost all the weight.

So put the important part first. "The summer menu starts today" works on any screen. "We are delighted to announce that our new summer menu starts today" loses its point before the guest reaches it. Short subject lines are not a style choice; they are what fits.

Next to or below the subject line, most inboxes show a grey line of preview text: the first words of the email, or a line written specially for the purpose. It is free space to finish the thought the subject started.

Use it. If the subject is "The lamb shoulder is back", the preview text might be "Slow-cooked, for two, from this weekend." Together they read like a sentence from a friend. Left empty, the preview often shows something useless, such as "View this email in your browser".

These are shapes of subject line that tend to work well for restaurants, each with an example:

These shapes tend to perform poorly, and often annoy guests:

What they share is that they hide the point. A guest has to open the email to find out whether it matters to them, and most will not bother.

The examples above are worth copying for their shape, not their wording. "The lamb shoulder is back" works because it names one specific thing a guest might love and says it has returned. Your version might be "The crab linguine is back" or "Sunday roasts are back".

Copying the words exactly makes every venue sound the same. Copying the structure, in your own voice and about your own food, gives you subject lines that work and still sound like you.

Offer emails need especially clear subject lines, because guests are wary of offers that are not what they seem. State the offer plainly: "Three courses, one price, this month" or "Early supper before the theatre". Guests can decide at once whether it interests them.

Avoid shouting about value. "Amazing deal!" or "Huge savings!" makes the offer sound cheap and the venue desperate. A plain description of something good, at a fair price, is more convincing than any superlative.

The subject line must match the email. A subject promising "a table tonight" for an email about next month's event, or "last chance" for an offer that runs all month, teaches guests that your subject lines cannot be trusted. Next time, they will not open.

Honest subject lines build a habit. Guests who learn that your subject lines tell the truth open the ones that interest them and skip the rest without resentment. That is a healthy list.

Putting the guest's name in the subject line, "Sarah, your table is waiting", is common and often counterproductive. Guests have learned that their name in a subject line usually means an automated email, and many find it slightly false.

A subject line that sounds like a person wrote it, without the name, often feels more personal than one with the name merged in. Use names where the email really is personal, such as a reply to a guest, and leave them out of campaigns.

Use them sparingly, if at all. A single well-chosen emoji can work for a playful brand, but several in a row look like spam, both to guests and to the filters that decide which folder an email lands in. Capitals read as shouting. More than one exclamation mark reads as desperation.

Match the brand voice. A relaxed café can be more playful than a fine-dining restaurant. Whatever the voice, subject lines should sound like the way the venue speaks to guests in the room.

Short is almost always better. A subject line of a few words fits on a phone, is quick to read and forces you to say the one thing that matters. Long subject lines get cut off, and the part that gets cut is often the important part.

As a habit, write the subject line, then try to make it shorter. "Join us for our special wine tasting evening this Thursday" becomes "Wine tasting on Thursday". The meaning is the same, and the guest gets it at a glance.

The traditional way to test a subject line is to compare email open rates. That has become unreliable. Opens are counted when an email loads a tiny tracking image, and some email apps now load images automatically, whether or not the guest reads the email, while others block them. The result is that open rates can be inflated or understated, and comparisons between them mean less than they used to.

So treat open rates with suspicion, and do not choose subject lines on opens alone. Our guide to email open rates and the numbers that matter more covers what to look at instead.

A better test of a subject line is what guests do after opening: whether they click and whether they book. A subject line that brings more guests to the email's booking link has done its job, whatever the open rate says.

Compare the click rate of emails with different subject lines, and look at bookings in the days after each send. Neither is perfect, because the content of the email also affects clicks, but together they are a far better guide than opens.

Email AB testing means sending two versions of an email, differing in one thing such as the subject line, to two random halves of a list, and comparing the results. The general method, A/B testing, is widely used for websites and email.

On a restaurant's list of a few thousand guests, though, the halves are small, and small differences between them are often just chance. Only large differences, seen again and again, are worth acting on. Treat any single test as a hint, not a verdict.

If you cannot split a list, you can still learn by testing across sends. Use one style of subject line for a few emails, then another for the next few, keeping other things, such as the day, the time and the kind of content, as similar as you can. Compare the click rates.

It is slower and less precise than a split test, but over a few months it shows which shapes suit your guests. A venue that finds its specific-dish subject lines consistently draw more clicks than its event announcements has learned something useful.

Keep a simple log of every send: the subject line, the preview text, the day and time, the audience, and the clicks and bookings that followed. It takes a minute per email and turns guesswork into evidence.

After a few months, read it back. Patterns appear: which shapes work for regulars, which for new guests, which days suit which kinds of email. The log becomes the venue's own guide to subject lines, built from its own guests rather than from someone else's advice.

The sender name, the line that says who the email is from, matters as much as the subject. Guests decide whether to open partly on who sent it. A name they recognise, such as the venue's name or "Maria at the bistro", earns more trust than a generic company name.

Keep the sender name consistent, so guests learn to recognise it. Changing it from email to email makes each one look like it came from somewhere new.

Different groups of guests respond to different subject lines. Regulars may open anything about a favourite dish or a regulars' evening. New guests may respond better to an invitation to try something specific. Lapsed guests may need a reason to remember why they liked the venue.

When you send to a particular group, write the subject line for them. "Your corner table, any night this week" suits a regular. "Three dishes to try on your next visit" suits a first-time guest. The same email, with a subject line written for its readers, does better.

Timely subject lines tend to beat clever ones. Seasonal food, the first warm evening on the terrace, a festive menu, a big match on the screen: each is a reason to open now, because the guest knows it will not last.

Plan them with the calendar. A subject line about the terrace opening, sent on the first sunny week, rides the guest's own mood. The same subject line sent in a downpour feels out of touch.

A strong subject line only works if the email copy behind it keeps the promise. A guest who opens "The lamb shoulder is back" should find the lamb shoulder in the first line, with a way to book. Burying it under three paragraphs of news breaks the promise and wastes the open.

Write the subject line and the opening line together, so they read as one thought. Our guide to email copy: eighty words and one link covers how to write the email that follows.

A useful habit is to write ten subject lines for each email and choose one. The first few are usually the obvious ones; by the seventh or eighth, more specific and more interesting options appear.

Then pick the most specific, the shortest and the one that sounds most like the venue. Read it aloud. If it sounds like something a member of your team would say to a guest, it is probably right.

Event emails need subject lines that name the event and when it is, because guests are deciding whether they can come, not just whether they are interested. "A Rioja tasting on the twelfth" or "The next supper club is in two weeks" tells guests at once whether to check their diary.

For the reminder a few days before, change the subject line rather than repeating it. "Six seats left for the Rioja tasting" is more useful, and more honest, than sending the same subject twice. Guests who missed the first email get the facts; guests who saw it get a reason to act.

In a group of venues, guests need to know at a glance which venue an email is from. A subject line about "the new terrace" means nothing to a guest who knows three of your venues and is not sure which one has a terrace.

Put the venue's name in the sender name, or at the start of the subject line where it helps: "Harbour Street: the terrace is open". Keep the format consistent across the group, so guests learn to recognise each venue's emails, and never send the same subject line from several venues in the same week.

Spam filters read subject lines too. Subject lines in capitals, with several exclamation marks or full of words common in unwanted email, such as "free", "winner" or "act now", can count against an email. A plain, specific subject line about your food is rarely a problem.

If emails that used to reach guests start disappearing, the subject lines are one of several things to check, alongside the sender, the list and the content. Our guide to email deliverability: why your mail goes to spam covers the rest.

An invented bistro has been sending a monthly email with subject lines like "October news from the bistro". Few guests click. It changes approach: each email now leads with one specific thing, such as "The crab linguine is back" or "Twelve seats at the chef's table", with preview text that finishes the thought.

Because it cannot split its list, it keeps a simple log and compares click rates across sends. Over four months, the specific-dish subject lines draw noticeably more clicks than the general ones, and bookings in the days after each send rise too. The bistro now writes ten subject lines for every email and picks the most specific.

In servearound, each campaign has a subject line and preview text, the grey line an inbox shows after the subject, with a desktop and a mobile preview of the email and a test send to any address before it goes out; the send checklist shows when the last test went and when this list was last emailed. Each of the more than 150 templates comes with a subject line to start from, which you can rewrite in your own voice.

servearound has no A/B testing and does not count opens, so the tests in this guide run across sends. Campaign analytics show each campaign's delivery rate, the guests who clicked and the click rate, with every campaign listed side by side and where the clicks went, which is the fairer way to compare subject lines. See Campaigns.

Short enough that the point fits in the first few words on a phone.

It is specific, honest and sounds like a person, and it promises something guests want.

Usually not in campaigns. It often looks automated.

Sparingly, and only if they fit the brand. Several in a row look like spam.

Not on their own. Opens have become unreliable; clicks and bookings are a better guide.

Compare click rates across several sends, keep a log and only act on differences you see again and again.

The grey line after the subject in most inboxes, which you can write to finish the thought.

Yes. Write ten, then choose the most specific and the shortest.

Email subject lines decide whether the rest of an email is read. The ones that work for restaurants are short, specific, honest and sound like a person: a dish that is back, an event with a name, a season, a note from the owner. The ones that fail hide the point, shout or pretend to be something they are not. Copy the shapes that work, in your own voice, and use the preview text to finish the thought.

Do not choose subject lines on open rates, which have become unreliable. Compare clicks and bookings across sends, keep a log of what you sent and what happened, and treat small tests as hints rather than verdicts. Write ten options for every email, choose the most specific and make sure the email keeps the promise its subject line makes.