For cafés, restaurants, bars and venues

A 15-minute check-up for the venue.

Seven areas, a plain score, and a ranked list of what to fix first. Written for the hour between the lunch rush and dinner prep, because that is when you will actually read it.

Built around the stack you already run, and around the handoffs between the parts of it that don't talk to each other.

Start the free check-up → What's changing in 2026
Free  ·  No card required  ·  15 minutes, not a workshop
A score across 7 areas

See where the business is strong, and where it's quietly leaking money.

A ranked action plan

Not a list of everything. The things worth fixing first, in order.

How to actually fix it

Each priority comes with step-by-step instructions, built around the tools you already use.

Realistic time estimates

Every fix tells you how long it'll take before you commit to it.

64 /100
Overall business health
New client enquiry 71
Booking & scheduling 68
Google & online presence 55
Referral relationships 80
Existing & past clients 43
Internal systems 62
Technology & automation 38
Reviewed September 2026

Three things that changed for venues this year.

01

Card surcharges stopped on 1 October. Your weekend surcharge did not.

From 1 October 2026 you cannot add a fee because a customer paid by card. What is not covered is the fee hospitality is best known for: weekend and public holiday surcharges, booking fees and service fees are all untouched. The ACCC's instruction has three parts. Turn card surcharging off on the terminals, take the surcharge notices off menus, signage, your website and your apps, and make sure the price shown is the total the customer pays.

RBA FAQ; ACCC card surcharges guidance; business.gov.au · reviewed September 2026
02

Seafood on your menu has to show where it came from

Since 1 July 2026 every business serving seafood for immediate consumption has to show its origin: Australian, Imported or Mixed, either spelled out or as A, I and M with a legend. It has to appear wherever the customer decides what to order, so printed menus, menu boards, your website, QR menus and delivery apps all count. Dine in, takeaway and delivery are all in scope, the exclusions are narrow, and supplier origin records have to be kept for three months.

Information Standard 2025 (F2025L00751); business.gov.au; Restaurant & Catering Australia · reviewed September 2026
03

Venues still close at nearly twice the rate of everyone else

CreditorWatch's August 2026 data puts the hospitality closure rate at 12.03% against 6.69% across all industries, and the payment default rate at 1.15% against 0.31%. The cash rate rose four times during 2026 to 4.60%, and discretionary dining is the first line a household cuts. None of that is new, which is the point. Cash flow visibility, not a better month, is what decides which venues are still open next winter.

CreditorWatch Business Risk Index, August 2026; RBA · reviewed September 2026
What we look at

Seven areas, in the language of a venue.

The areas run into each other. A margin problem is often a stock problem wearing a disguise, and a bad Saturday usually started with a Tuesday decision.

Start the check-up →
New guest enquiries

The booking that arrives through Instagram at 7pm on a Friday, the phone that rings mid-service, and what becomes of the enquiry nobody managed to get to.

Bookings & covers

Whether the booking system fills a quiet Tuesday as well as it fills a busy Saturday, what a no-show actually costs you, and whether a walk-in can see a wait time before they give up and go elsewhere.

Google & online presence

Whether your hours are right on the day it matters, whether the photos are yours and recent, and whether the last ten reviews all say the same thing.

Regulars & loyalty

Whether the people who come every week are recognised as such, and whether a first-timer is given any reason at all to become one.

Menu & margin

Whether you know what each dish genuinely makes, whether waste is measured or merely managed, and which items are quietly subsidising the rest of the menu.

Internal systems

Rosters, ordering, handover, prep lists. Whether the venue runs on written process or on the two people who have been there longest.

Technology & integration

Whether POS, bookings, online ordering, rostering and accounting are connected, or whether somebody is retyping numbers at eleven o'clock at night.

Where the money goes

The five handoffs where venues lose it.

The question is rarely which tools you run. It is what happens in the space between them, where a person is quietly doing a job that software should be doing.

POS → Accounting

Takings retyped at the end of a long night, which is exactly when errors get made.

Bookings → POS

Covers booked and covers served living in two places, so neither number is trustworthy.

Online ordering → Kitchen

Orders arriving on a second screen that nobody is watching during a rush.

Rostering → Payroll

Hours worked re-entered by hand, which is where wage errors and underpayment claims start.

Stock → Menu costing

Supplier prices moving without the menu price moving, so margin drifts quietly for months.

The check-up asks about each of these in turn, then tells you which gap is costing you most.

What comes back

One priority, as a venue actually receives it.

Not "integrate your tech stack". A specific job, ranked against everything else we found, with an honest estimate of what it takes on the one afternoon a week you get.

Priority 1 · Technology & integration
Connect the POS to accounting so takings stop being typed twice
Technology & integration ⏱ 1 hr to set up HIGH impact
  • List every number that currently gets entered twice between POS, bookings and accounting.
  • Start with daily takings, the one that costs you at eleven at night and is where the errors are.
  • Check the first week against the POS by hand, then stop checking and take the hour back.
On the paid plan, this is where Spryng writes the connection steps for your specific POS and accounting package.
Before you start

Questions operators ask us.

We're a small café, not a restaurant group. Is this relevant?

Small venues are most of who uses it. The seven areas are the same whether you do forty covers or four hundred, and a small venue feels a weak one faster because there is no slack anywhere to absorb it.

When am I supposed to find fifteen minutes?

It saves as you go, so you can start it between services and finish it whenever. There are no long-answer questions. Most of it is choosing the option that sounds most like your venue.

Do I need to connect the POS?

No. Nothing to connect, no logins, no access to your systems. You tell us what you run and the guidance is written for it. The only thing we look at directly is your public website and Google listing.

Will it just tell me to get a new POS?

Almost never. The common finding is not that a tool is wrong, it is that two tools you already pay for are not talking, and somebody is bridging the gap by hand. That's usually a setting, not a purchase.

What comes back at the end?

A score across the seven areas and a ranked list of priorities, free, as soon as you finish. Every item has a realistic time estimate attached, so you can match it to the time you actually have.

What's the catch on free?

There isn't one on the check-up. The score and the ranked plan are free with no card. Pro, at $49 a month, adds step-by-step implementation help and progress tracking, and hasn't launched yet. What's free now stays free.

Is my cafe or restaurant profitable? What food cost percentage should I be at?

Profitable Australian cafes generally sit at 25 to 28 percent food cost, with restaurants a little higher; the ATO's own small business benchmarks put cost of sales at 32 to 39 percent of turnover for restaurants and 33 to 42 percent for cafes. Above that, margin is usually leaking in wastage or pricing, not covers.

What labour cost percentage is healthy for a venue?

A sustainable range is around 28 to 34 percent of revenue once super, WorkCover and penalty rates are included, which run higher here than in markets without full award wages. If yours is above that, the check-up usually finds it in rostering against actual demand, not headcount.

Free · 15 minutes · no card

Find out what the gaps are actually costing you.

Fifteen minutes, between services. No card, no sales call, no follow-up you did not ask for. Just a straight read on which part of the venue to fix next.

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