Can Seatly handle lunch and dinner service with different rules?

Yes. Availability is configured per day and per time band, so a Mediterranean restaurant running lunch 12-3 and dinner 6-late sets each session with its own capacity, turn time, and party-size limits. The admin dashboard lets staff add date overrides for closed dates or special services.

Do you support longer turn times for group bookings?

Yes. Each booking can carry its own duration, and group or private dining bookings on the Business tier (£129/month) take their own slot rules. A two-and-a-half-hour party booking does not crowd out the standard one-and-a-half-hour table.

I am on ResDiary or DishCult. How easy is it to leave?

Check your contract first. Restaurants on ResDiary have reported a 90-day cancellation notice period and 12-month auto-renewal in their service agreement, often introduced after the Access acquisition. Once you have served notice, the Seatly widget is a one-line script tag on your existing site (WordPress, Wix, Shopify, Squarespace, and custom sites all tested) — usually live in under ten minutes.

Can the widget show in English alongside another language?

The widget is currently English-only. A multi-language widget is on the roadmap but not shipped today. If a Turkish or Greek-language booking flow is essential, this might not be the right time to switch — let us know and we can flag when it lands.

What about outdoor tables in summer?

Outdoor capacity is treated as part of your total capacity at each time slot today. The Business tier (£129/month) includes a visual floor plan manager that lets staff lay out every table individually and assign bookings to specific tables, which is the most practical way to keep terrace bookings distinct from the main room.

Seatly for Mediterranean and Turkish Restaurants

Direct bookings for Mediterranean kitchens.

A flat-fee booking system for Mediterranean, Turkish, Greek and Lebanese restaurants in the UK. Your branding, your website, your customer data. No per-cover fees, no annual lock-ins, no 90-day notice period to leave.

Why Mediterranean restaurants need direct bookings

Mediterranean kitchens run a longer service than the average gastropub. Lunch into mid-afternoon, dinner into late evening, mezze tables that hold their seats for two hours and longer. The booking system needs to respect that, not flatten every booking into a standard 90-minute slot.

Many independents in this space currently use ResDiary, often via its DishCult-branded consumer site. ResDiary works, but restaurant owners on industry forums have consistently flagged the same friction: a 90-day cancellation notice period, a 12-month auto-renewal clause, and a feature set bloated with tools the average restaurant never uses.

For restaurants without any online booking, the alternative is not a competitor platform — it is the phone. Older diners still prefer to call. Younger diners increasingly do not, and a website without a booking widget loses them to the next restaurant on Google.

Built for the way Mediterranean restaurants run

01. White-label widget on your own site. The booking flow stays on your domain, in your brand colours, with your restaurant name. No DishCult, ResDiary, or TheFork logo in the diner's journey.^*
02. Per-session availability rules. Configure lunch and dinner as separate services with their own capacity, turn times, and party-size limits. Date overrides cover closed days, holidays, and special services like a Sunday meze sharing menu.
03. Group and private dining on the Business tier (£129/month). Larger parties take their own slot rules, so a two-and-a-half-hour celebration booking does not crowd out the standard table.
04. SMS reminders included on every tier — 200 on Starter, 400 on Professional, 1,200 on Business (pooled across all sites). Cuts no-shows without bolting on a third-party reminder service.
05. Visual floor plan on the Business tier. Lay out every table and assign bookings to specific tables — the practical way to keep terrace bookings distinct from the main room.

Seatly vs ResDiary vs phone-only

ResDiary pricing is quote-based; publicly reported figures put Standard at around £149 per month with higher tiers (Premier, ResBoss) running £199 to £299. Contract terms are negotiated per restaurant — always verify the specifics directly with the provider before relying on the numbers below.

	Seatly	ResDiary	Phone only
Monthly subscription	£59 to £129 flat	~£149 to £299 quote-based	£0
Per-cover fee	£0 at every tier	£0	n/a
Contract	Monthly rolling, cancel anytime	12-month auto-renewal typical	n/a
Notice to leave	None	90 days reported	n/a
Widget branding	Your brand by default	DishCult / ResDiary branded	n/a
Booking flow	Stays on your website	Often redirects to DishCult	n/a
Data residency	London, UK	UK (Access Group)	n/a
Setup	Paste one line of code	Sales process, onboarding fee	n/a

What you keep when you switch

01. Your customers. Every diner who books becomes a record in your database, not a vendor's. Names, dietary preferences, booking history — yours to keep, export, or delete.
02. Your brand. No DishCult landing page, no competing restaurants in the booking journey. The booking widget shows your colours and your restaurant name.^*
03. Your exit option. Monthly rolling, cancel anytime, export your data on the way out. No 90-day notice, no 12-month auto-renewal.
04. Your operating rhythm. Lunch and dinner services with their own rules. Outdoor versus indoor tables on the Business tier. A booking system shaped around how Mediterranean restaurants actually run, not a generic 90-minute one-size-fits-all template.

When ResDiary is still the right choice

We are not trying to talk every Mediterranean restaurant out of ResDiary. There are situations where it earns its fee:

• Multi-site groups with central reservations who need a unified booking system across several venues, with the operational tooling and integrations that come with Access Group's wider product suite.
• Venues built around the DishCult discovery audience — if a meaningful share of your bookings genuinely originate from DishCult's consumer site, that traffic is something Seatly does not replace today.
• Restaurants already paying for a deep PMS or POS integration through the Access ecosystem, where switching means unpicking other plumbing.

For most independent Mediterranean restaurants running a single site with their own website and their own following, the contract terms and the per-tier complexity rarely pay back.

Switching from ResDiary

01. Check your contract and serve notice early. If your service agreement carries a 90-day notice period, send written notice as soon as you have decided to switch. The earlier you serve notice, the sooner the meter stops.
02. Export your customer and booking history from ResDiary while the account is still live. Keep the export as a CSV for your own records.
03. Paste one line of code into your website. The Seatly widget works on WordPress, Wix, Shopify, Squarespace, and custom sites (all tested in May 2026).

We are pre-launch and onboarding the first cohort of UK independents one at a time. If you are on ResDiary and want a second pair of eyes on the contract before you give notice, get in touch.

Common questions

Can Seatly handle lunch and dinner service with different rules?: Yes. Availability is configured per day and per time band, so a Mediterranean restaurant running lunch 12-3 and dinner 6-late sets each session with its own capacity, turn time, and party-size limits. The admin dashboard lets staff add date overrides for closed dates or special services.
Do you support longer turn times for group bookings?: Yes. Each booking can carry its own duration, and group or private dining bookings on the Business tier (£129/month) take their own slot rules. A two-and-a-half-hour party booking does not crowd out the standard one-and-a-half-hour table.
I am on ResDiary or DishCult. How easy is it to leave?: Check your contract first. Restaurants on ResDiary have reported a 90-day cancellation notice period and 12-month auto-renewal in their service agreement, often introduced after the Access acquisition. Once you have served notice, the Seatly widget is a one-line script tag on your existing site — usually live in under ten minutes. WordPress, Wix, Shopify, Squarespace, and custom sites are all tested.
Can the widget show in English alongside another language?: The widget is currently English-only. A multi-language widget is on the roadmap but not shipped today. If a Turkish or Greek-language booking flow is essential, this might not be the right time to switch — let us know and we can flag when it lands.
What about outdoor tables in summer?: Outdoor capacity is treated as part of your total capacity at each time slot today. The Business tier (£129/month) includes a visual floor plan manager that lets staff lay out every table individually and assign bookings to specific tables, which is the most practical way to keep terrace bookings distinct from the main room.

Looking at the wider market? The full Seatly vs ResDiary comparison covers contract terms, feature set, and pricing in more detail.

Not a Mediterranean restaurant? See our page for Indian restaurants or the page for independent UK restaurants . Our buyer's guide compares nine platforms against the same six criteria.

Ready to switch?

We are onboarding UK independents into the first cohort now. Tell us about your venue and we will walk you through the handover from ResDiary or DishCult end-to-end.

* A note on Seatly branding. Seatly branding is optional and entirely your choice. A single toggle in your admin Settings controls whether a small "Powered by Seatly" line appears on your booking widget AND in confirmation, reminder, and cancellation emails. When enabled, you receive a tier-matched discount on your subscription (£5/month on Starter, £10/month on Professional, £15/month on Business). The toggle defaults to ON for Starter accounts and OFF for Professional and Business — you can change it whenever you like.