WhatsApp Business API/Restaurants & cafés
for restaurants & cafés
For a Kuwait restaurant or café, the WhatsApp Business API turns the order phone into a shared inbox: customers order from your menu inside the chat, bookings confirm themselves, and regulars who opted in hear about the new dish first. We set it up on Gallabox for free, and direct orders reach you without a delivery app's commission.
We're a Gallabox partner. We sell Gallabox plans at Gallabox's own published prices in Kuwait and across the GCC, and we set them up for free.
the actual problem
Most Kuwait restaurants get delivery orders through Talabat and Deliveroo, bookings by phone, and everything else on one WhatsApp number that the cashier answers between customers. At lunch and after iftar, messages asking for the menu, the location or a table for eight sit unanswered while the rush is on. The customer opens a delivery app instead, you pay commission on someone who wanted to order from you, and the booking goes to whichever place replied.
The customer browses your catalogue, adds dishes to a cart and sends it, then picks delivery or pickup and the area. The order lands in the inbox with the address and notes, so the cashier only has to confirm the time and send the KNET link.
Thanks {{1}}, we've received your order {{2}}. Estimated {{3}} time: {{4}}. We'll message you when it leaves the kitchen.
A WhatsApp form asks for the date, time, number of guests and indoor or outdoor seating, then confirms the table. On the day, a reminder with the location pin goes out, and a guest who can't come cancels with one tap, freeing the table for Thursday-night walk-ins.
Your table for {{1}} at {{2}} is booked for {{3}}. Reply 1 to confirm or 2 to cancel.
Customers who ordered directly and agreed to hear from you get a message when they go quiet — a new dish, the Ramadan ghabga menu, a weekend deal on direct orders. One clear reason, sent only to people who asked, brings back orders you'd otherwise pay an app commission on.
It's been a while, {{1}}! Our new {{2}} is on the menu this week, and you can order it right here. Reply STOP to unsubscribe.
Opening hours, delivery areas and fees, the minimum order, parking and Ramadan timings. A bot answers these in Arabic or English at any hour, and hands allergy questions and anything about a late or wrong order to the shift manager.
We deliver to [area] from [opening hours], with a minimum order of [amount] KD. For an allergy question, a member of our team will reply shortly.
If you take a few direct orders a day and one person answers chats comfortably, stay on the free WhatsApp Business app: put your menu in its catalogue, add your location and delivery areas to the profile, set an away message with your opening hours, and save quick replies for the menu, minimum order and bookings. Move to the API when orders pile up at peak hours, or when the kitchen and the counter need the same number.
Talabat and Deliveroo keep their customers updated inside their own apps. Direct orders don't have that, so the customer messages to ask where the food is while the driver is on the road. Three short templates do the job: order received with the estimated time, out for delivery with the driver's name, and delivered. Keep them to the order and the time — no 'try our new dessert' — so they stay utility and don't get approved as marketing.
Meta's in-chat payments aren't available in Kuwait, so a direct order is paid through a link from your gateway — MyFatoorah, Tap, UPayments or your bank — or in cash at the door. Send the link with the order summary before the kitchen starts. For catering, large Eid trays and big group bookings, a deposit link turns a verbal order into a commitment, and one reminder the day before covers anyone still unpaid.
In a shared inbox, orders go to the cashier on shift, bookings go to the host, catering enquiries go to whoever prices events, and complaints go to the branch manager. With more than one branch, chats are routed by area so the nearest kitchen takes the order. Shift changes stop losing orders, because the next person sees the notes and who is still waiting — not a phone left in a drawer.
A regular who ordered every week and then stopped is worth more than a new follower. From your direct-order history, message the opted-in customers who haven't ordered in two weeks, then 30 days, then 60, each time with one specific reason: a new dish, the Ramadan ghabga menu, a catering tray for Eid, or a deal only on direct orders. Leave anyone with an open complaint out until a manager has spoken to them.
For dine-in, send the review link the same evening, once. For delivery, send it an hour or two after the order arrives, while the food is still fresh in their mind. If the reply says the food came cold or something was missing, route it to the branch manager to put right before it turns into a public one-star review. Keep the request apart from any offer — a discount in exchange for a review breaks Google's rules.
Replying 'check the menu on Instagram' instead of sending it. Leaving the WhatsApp number unanswered during the rush, which is exactly when people are hungry. Broadcasting the daily special to everyone who ever ordered, until they block the number and Meta restricts it. Attaching a promo to a delivery update, which gets it approved as marketing. And taking a large catering order on a verbal 'confirmed' with no deposit.
Count them for a month before and a month after: how fast the first reply goes out during the lunch and dinner rush, how many chats become an order or a booking, how many bookings don't show up, and how many direct customers order again within the month. Set those next to what you paid the delivery apps in commission over the same weeks — that comparison decides whether the API is paying for itself.
Your commercial licence for Meta's business verification, the number customers already know from your Instagram and delivery bags, the restaurant name exactly as it appears on your sign, your menu with prices and photos for the catalogue, and your delivery areas and fees. Verification is the step that waits longest, so we start it first and build the menu and flows while it runs. If the number is already on the WhatsApp Business app, coexistence may let you keep using the app alongside the API.
Gallabox Basic billed yearly, at its published price, plus a charge for each template message delivered. Full plans and message rates are on the pricing page.
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