Bitewise terms

There are two sets of terms. Terms for diners apply if you book through the app. Terms for restaurants apply if you run a restaurant on Bitewise.

Bitewise Terms for Diners

DRAFT FOR SOLICITOR REVIEW. Not legal advice. Drafted from the Bitewise product rules (docs/03-business-rules.md) and code. No lawyer has reviewed it. Do not publish it or rely on it until a UK solicitor has approved it and every [PLACEHOLDER] is filled.

Last updated: [DATE]

These terms are an agreement between you and [COMPANY NAME] (company number [COMPANY NUMBER], registered office [REGISTERED ADDRESS]) ("Bitewise", "we", "us") about your use of the Bitewise mobile app. Please read them with our Privacy Policy.

1. What Bitewise is

Bitewise lets you book a table at a participating restaurant and choose your dishes in advance, so the kitchen can prepare for you. Bitewise is not the restaurant. Your meal, and the contract for it, is between you and the restaurant. Bitewise provides the booking and pre-ordering service.

2. You always pay at the restaurant

Bitewise never takes payment from you. There is no card payment, deposit or pre-authorisation in the app. Every price you see is what you will pay at the restaurant, in person, at the end of your meal, in the same way you would have paid without the app. If anyone asks you to pay for a Bitewise booking online or by transfer, it is not us. Tell us at [SUPPORT EMAIL].

3. Your account

You must be 18 or over to create an account [DECISION]. Give accurate details and keep your password private. You are responsible for what is done through your account. Tell us at once if you think someone else has used it. You can stop using Bitewise and delete your account at any time [REQUIRES BUILD: account deletion in the app].

4. Booking and pre-ordering

You choose a restaurant, a date and time ("sitting"), a number of guests and, if you wish, the dishes each guest would like.
A booking is confirmed when the app shows you a booking reference such as BW-4821. We also email you the details.
Menu items and prices come from the restaurant. A price is fixed for your booking when you confirm it. If the restaurant later changes its menu, your confirmed booking keeps the dishes and prices you chose. If you amend your booking, your dishes are priced again at the restaurant's current prices, and the discount rate stays the one shown when you first booked.
Some items, such as drinks and daily specials, can only be ordered at the table. The app marks them "order on the night". You cannot pre-order them.
A pre-order is a head start for the kitchen, not a final bill. You can order anything else on the night.
Restaurants set how many covers they offer for each sitting and keep some in reserve for walk-in guests. A sitting that is full or paused cannot be booked.

5. The pre-order discount

If you pre-order food, the restaurant takes a percentage off your pre-ordered food at the restaurant. The standard rate is 5%, and the rate shown in the app for your booking is the rate that applies to it. Restaurants fund the discount.

It applies to the pre-ordered dishes only. It does not apply to drinks, to anything you add at the table, or to a service charge.
If you pre-order nothing, there is no discount.
The amount shown in the app is an estimate of your food total after the discount. The restaurant applies it on its own till, and the final bill is between you and the restaurant.
If a restaurant does not apply the discount shown on your booking, please show your booking to a member of staff and then tell us at [SUPPORT EMAIL] with your booking reference. We will take it up with the restaurant, but we cannot guarantee that the discount is applied [DECISION: add any goodwill remedy].

6. Changing or cancelling: the cut-off

You can change your dishes, number of guests or sitting, or cancel your booking, free of charge and as often as you like, until the cut-off. The cut-off is a set number of hours before your sitting. It is chosen by each restaurant (between 1 and 72 hours; the usual setting is 4 hours). The app shows you the cut-off time for your booking.

Changing a booking keeps the same reference.
Cancelling releases your seats straight away.
After the cut-off you cannot change the booking in the app. Contact the restaurant, which may still be able to help.
If you do not turn up, we do not charge you. The restaurant may record that you did not attend. The restaurant may have its own approach to repeated no-shows; please check with it [DECISION: confirm].

7. If the restaurant has to cancel or change things

A restaurant can cancel a booking at any time, for example if it has to close. We will tell you by email and, if you have allowed notifications, in the app. We are not responsible for losses you suffer because of a cancellation, other than as the law requires.

8. Allergies and dietary needs

Dietary preferences and notes you give us are passed to the restaurant as part of your booking. Bitewise does not check ingredients or allergen information. Always tell the restaurant about any allergy or intolerance directly when you arrive, and ask staff to confirm what is safe for you. Do not rely on the app for this.

9. Reviews

If you leave a review, it must be honest, based on your own visit, and not abusive, defamatory, discriminatory or misleading. We may remove a review that breaks these rules. You give us a free right to display it in the app. Reviews are public.

10. Using Bitewise properly

Do not misuse the service: no fake bookings, no booking to block other diners, no attempts to access other people's data or to interfere with the service. We may suspend or close an account that breaks these terms, after warning you where reasonable.

11. Our responsibility to you

We will provide Bitewise with reasonable care and skill. We do not promise that it will be uninterrupted or error free. Nothing in these terms limits liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, or for anything else the law does not allow us to limit, and your statutory consumer rights are unaffected. Subject to that, we are not liable for: the food, service, safety or conduct of any restaurant; losses we could not reasonably have foreseen; or loss of profit or business [SOLICITOR TO CHECK].

12. Impact figures

The food waste figures in the app are estimates. For each restaurant we use that restaurant's own declared figures for typical waste per cover and waste with pre-ordering, and apply them to your booking. They are not measurements of your meal.

13. Changes to the app or these terms

We may change the app and these terms, for example to reflect new features or legal changes. We will tell you about important changes before they apply. If you do not agree, you can stop using the app and delete your account.

14. Governing law and complaints

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales. If you live in Scotland or Northern Ireland you may also bring proceedings in your home courts and keep the protection of your local law. For complaints, email [SUPPORT EMAIL]; we aim to reply within 5 working days.

15. Contact

[COMPANY NAME], [REGISTERED ADDRESS], [SUPPORT EMAIL].

Bitewise Terms for Restaurants

DRAFT FOR SOLICITOR REVIEW. Not legal advice. Drafted from the Bitewise product rules (docs/03-business-rules.md), backlog and code. No lawyer has reviewed it. Do not publish it or rely on it until a UK solicitor has approved it and every [PLACEHOLDER] is filled.

Last updated: [DATE]

These terms are an agreement between [COMPANY NAME] (company number [COMPANY NUMBER], registered office [REGISTERED ADDRESS]) ("Bitewise", "we", "us") and the business that signs up to the Bitewise restaurant portal ("you", "the Restaurant"). They apply to business customers only. The person who accepts them confirms they have authority to bind the Restaurant.

1. The service

Bitewise provides (a) a mobile app through which diners book a table at your Restaurant and choose their dishes in advance, and (b) a web portal where you manage your profile, photos, menus, sittings and capacity, view bookings and the prep board, and see your impact figures. We may add or change features.

Bitewise does not take payment from diners. Diners pay you, in person, at your Restaurant.

2. Accounts and approval

An owner creates the Restaurant account and can invite team members with a role of owner, chef or front of house. You are responsible for everything done through your users and for keeping them current. Remove people who leave.
A new Restaurant starts as a draft. When you submit it, Bitewise reviews it before it appears to diners. We may approve or reject a listing, for example if information is incomplete or inaccurate.
You must give accurate information and keep it up to date, including your address, opening times, menu, prices and capacity.

3. Fees

Plans: Single site, Full service and Group, at the monthly prices shown at sign-up or agreed in writing, currently GBP 39 and GBP 79 per month for the first two and a price on application for Group [VERIFY: confirm prices; state whether VAT is added].
Subscriptions are billed monthly in advance by Stripe. You give your card details to Stripe, not to us.
Free period. Restaurants approved during the launch pilot get a free period of 3 months from approval, with no charge [VERIFY: see open question 3]. We will tell you before the first charge. You can cancel before it.
If a payment fails we will tell you and retry. Your account stays available while we sort it out, but we may suspend it if payment is not made after reasonable notice.
You can cancel at any time from the billing page. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the period you have paid for. We do not refund part months [DECISION].

4. The pre-order discount

Diners who pre-order food get a percentage off their pre-ordered food when they pay at your Restaurant. The standard rate is 5%, and you set it for your Restaurant in the portal (default 5.00%). The rate is copied onto each booking when it is made, so a later change does not affect existing bookings.
You fund the discount. It reduces what you charge the diner. Bitewise does not pay it or reimburse it.
The discount applies to pre-ordered dishes only, never to drinks, to anything added at the table, or to a service charge. A booking with no pre-ordered dishes has no discount.
You must honour the discount shown on a booking. Every booking in the portal shows its reference and the discount to apply. Your staff must apply it on your till. This is the single most important obligation in these terms: diners are promised it. Repeated failure to honour it is a ground for suspension (section 10).
Bitewise does not integrate with your till. The amount shown in the app is an estimate of the food total. The final bill is between you and the diner.
[DECISION: unless agreed in writing, the discount rate must be at least 5%.]

5. Cut-off, capacity and walk-ins

Cut-off. You choose a cut-off, from 1 to 72 hours before the sitting (default 4). Until then diners can change or cancel freely, with no penalty. After it, diners cannot change the booking in the app, though you can cancel from the portal. The cut-off is calculated from your current setting, so changing it also moves the cut-off of bookings that already exist; change it rarely and do not shorten it for diners who have already booked.
Capacity. For each sitting you declare a capacity and a walk-in reserve. The system will not accept bookings beyond capacity minus walk-in reserve. You are responsible for entering these accurately, and for pausing a sitting you cannot serve. Bitewise cannot see your floor.
Honouring bookings. You must honour confirmed bookings. If you must cancel, do so as early as possible; the diner is told automatically. Frequent cancellations by you are a ground for suspension.
After service you should mark each booking completed or no-show in the portal. This keeps your figures accurate.
No-shows are recorded and shown to you. In release one Bitewise does not charge diners or take any action when a diner does not attend. Any policy you apply is your own.

You are responsible for the accuracy of your menu, descriptions and prices, for marking which dishes can be pre-ordered, and for switching off dishes you cannot serve.
You are responsible for allergen information and for compliance with food safety and food information law. Bitewise does not check ingredients or allergens. Diners' dietary notes are passed to you as given; you must read and act on them.
You must have the right to use the photos, text and logos you upload (including any menu PDF). You give Bitewise a non-exclusive licence to display them in the app and portal, for the time you are on Bitewise. Photos are converted to WebP and must be under the size limits shown in the portal.

7. Your waste figures

Your impact figures are calculated from numbers you declare: your baseline waste per cover, your planned waste per cover with pre-ordering, and your stock cost per kilogram. Bitewise does not audit them. You confirm they are honest estimates. Bitewise may show them to diners (for example as "food waste avoided"), so you must not give figures you know to be unrealistic. We may ask how you reached them, and may hide figures we reasonably believe are misleading.

8. The 1% charity commitment

Bitewise commits 1% of subscription fees it receives from Restaurants [DECISION: excluding VAT] to [CHARITY NAME] (registered charity number [CHARITY NUMBER]). Each month Bitewise records a figure for each paying Restaurant, showing the fee, the percentage, the amount and the charity, and shows your Restaurant's figure on your invoice and your billing page. The platform total appears to diners. During any free period the subscription fee is zero, so the recorded contribution is zero. The contribution is made by Bitewise out of its own revenue. It does not increase your fees and you do not receive a tax benefit from it. Bitewise will pay recorded contributions to the charity at least [PAYMENT FREQUENCY] [DECISION].

9. Data protection

For the account data of your users, Bitewise is a controller. For diner booking details that Bitewise passes to you (booking reference, date and time, party size, dishes, any note and booking status), you are a separate controller. You must use them only to serve that booking, keep them secure, not contact diners for marketing, and delete them when no longer needed. See the Bitewise Privacy Policy. You will tell us promptly of any breach affecting data you received from Bitewise.

10. Suspension and termination

We may suspend or remove your Restaurant from the app, immediately where necessary, if: you repeatedly fail to honour the discount; you give false or misleading information (including waste figures); you repeatedly cancel confirmed bookings or oversell the capacity you declared; you do not pay after reasonable notice; or your Restaurant presents a risk to diners or to Bitewise's reputation. We will tell you why where we can. If suspended, new bookings stop; for existing confirmed bookings we may cancel them and tell the diners [DECISION]. Either of us can end this agreement by notice (see section 3 for how you cancel). We can end it with 30 days' notice for any reason [DECISION].

On ending, your data in the portal is available to download for [30 DAYS] [REQUIRES BUILD: export]; we then delete or anonymise it, except records we must keep by law (invoices, subscription and charity contribution records).

11. Our service levels

During the pilot the service is provided as is. We aim for it to be available, and we will tell you in advance of planned downtime where we can, but we do not guarantee uptime. We will give support by email to [SUPPORT EMAIL] during [SUPPORT HOURS].

12. Liability

Nothing limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, fraud, or anything the law does not allow to be limited. Subject to that: we are not liable for loss of profit, revenue, goodwill or indirect loss; and our total liability to you in any 12-month period is limited to the fees you paid in the previous 12 months [SOLICITOR TO SET]. We are not responsible for your food, your staff, your premises or your compliance with the law.

13. General

These terms are the whole agreement for the service, together with any signed pilot agreement. If they conflict, the signed pilot agreement wins. We may update these terms on 30 days' notice; if you do not agree you may cancel. English law applies and the courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction.

14. Contact