Loyal Cast

About & FAQ

What is Loyal Cast? Loyal Cast is a new mobile experience that gives you more of what you want from your favorite local restaurants, craft brewers, cafés, bars, and food trucks – greater value and a better connection! The Loyal Cast app is free to download on both iOS from the App Store and on Android from Google Play.

How do I use the App? First download the app to your phone. Then register your account. Once you have an account, you use that account’s email and your password to log in. We strongly recommend you use a very secure password to prevent someone else from accessing your account. In most cases, your app account will remain logged in, even if you close the app. If your phone does not have a primary use log in, we recommend you log out of Loyal Cast after each use.

Go beyond the menu with chef’s choice prepaid prix fixe offerings that drive greater value and new experiences.

How does it work? Many of your favorite food and drink places can now offer their own digital tokens for sale. These tokens are each represented by a unique nine-letter code (e.g., ABC-EFG-HIJ). We call them meal codes.

Where can I buy a restaurant’s meal codes? When they are available, you can purchase these meal codes directly from participating restaurants on their Loyal Cast hosted online portals. You can find links to a restaurant’s web portal in the app or on their website or social media pages.

Where do the codes come from and what about security and privacy? Loyal Cast auto-generates each restaurant’s unique meal codes for you at the time you purchase them. Your purchase is made on a Stripe®-hosted secure storefront. The funds are collected by Stripe® and then sent directly to the restaurant’s account. You receive your meal codes (per your selection at the time of purchase) via email and/or text message to your mobile phone. No information about you or your Loyal Cast account is shared with the restaurant. The restaurant retains a Stripe® generated purchase confirmation code for accounting purposes and to manage their meal code sales. Loyal Cast does not share or sell any of your information to anyone.

I have purchased my meal codes. Now what can I do with them? Each meal code is unique and represents a prepaid digital token that can be exchanged for any offer made to you by the issuing restaurant. We refer to these offers as invitations. You can enter your meal codes into your app or share them with someone else as a gift. Each unique code can only be entered into the app once, and once entered can only be used by that account.

Why is unused meal code security important? Until a meal code is entered into an intended app user’s account successfully, treat it like cash. We strongly recommend you always keep unused meal codes safe and secure. Anyone who gains access to a meal code that has not yet been entered into a Loyal Cast app account can repurpose it for their own use. The best way to protect your meal codes is to enter them into the app as soon as you purchase them. Likewise, encourage those who you give meal codes to as a gift to do the same.

Now that I have entered my codes into the app, what happens? Restaurants create prix fixe meals of their choice. We call this chef’s choice because the restaurant can go beyond the menu to come up with anything they can imagine. They will create an invitation for that meal, including a heading to get your attention with, a description of what it is, and a time and date window for pick up.

How do the invitations work? Restaurants build and cast digital invitations to a select number of people who have unused digital tokens stored in their app. These invitations are received in the app, and you are notified via a push notification and/or email. The push notifications take you to the app’s active invitations section. Email invitation alerts direct you to go to the app. In the app, you can see your active invitations. Each active invitation has a timer which limits how long you have to accept that offer.

How do I accept an invitation and what happens if I do not? When you receive an invitation, you can decide if you want to accept it or wait for something else. While the invitation is still open, you can review and accept it inside the app. If you miss the invitation or decide to pass on it, your digital token is preserved in your app for later use.

What happens when I accept an invitation? Once you accept an invitation, the app sends the meal code attached to the digital token you used to the restaurant. In your app’s active invitations section, you can view your invitation’s details along with a countdown to the start of the pick up window (start and stop times and dates). Some invitations will have windows that are later in the day, while others might be for later in the week or even further out in time. It’s important to consider each invitation’s time and date carefully before you accept it. Once you accept an invitation, your purchase is confirmed, and that transaction is not refundable or reversable. All sales are final.

It is time to pick up your meal. What do I do? Starting fifteen (15) minutes before the pick up window opens, you can arrive in the app. We call this feature preferred pick up. Go to that active invitation and tap for more info. There you can use the arrive feature to let the restaurant know you are ready for your pick up.

What happens after I arrive in the app? Once you have input and sent the information details about your arrival, the restaurant’s food runner is notified. This person is responsible for bringing your meal (pick up) to you. In most cases, there is no need to get out of your vehicle nor do you have to call the restaurant. Everything is managed digitally in real-time.

The meal is delivered to me. How does that work? The restaurant’s food runner will receive a notice that you have arrived and are awaiting your meal. They receive your description of your vehicle (make, model, and color), your location (where you described you are parked), and your instructions on where you want the meal placed (in your truck, back seat, somewhere else). The food runner is shown the meal code that is attached to the digital token you used to accept this invitation with. When they bring you the meal, they will ask you to show them your meal code which is now displayed prominently in the app in that invitation’s Arrived window.

How is my meal delivery confirmed? Once the food runner has found you and delivered your meal, they will complete the process by updating your pick up’s status from arrived to delivered. This update is confirmed in your app as well.

What about invitations that don’t include preferred pick up? In some cases, your invitation will be for an event at a restaurant or perhaps at another location. For some invitations, you will be asked to go in and pick up the meal. In these cases, your arrival will be in person. You will arrive (in the app) during the appropriate time and date and then someone from the restaurant may choose to check you in by updating your invitation’s status to delivered.

What happens if I accept an invitation but forget to pick up my meal or cannot make it to the restaurant during the pick up window? It is your responsibility to get to the restaurant and arrive (in the app) during the invitation’s predesignated pick up window times. If you cannot or do not do so, it is up to the restaurant to determine how they choose to handle this. Restaurants are under no obligation to offer you any compensation either in terms of replacement tokens or in other goods or service. A good comparison to this rule would be that of a concert ticket. If you purchase a ticket and then fail to make it to the show, regardless of the reason, there is no obligation by the venue or artist to compensate you.

What if the restaurant wants to work with me to make up for a missed meal pick up? Once a pick up window has closed, any invitation you have accepted will be displayed in the app’s Gallery, sorted with the most recent first. Close the app and reopen it if you need to refresh the gallery. The invitation’s meal code and final status (accepted/arrived/delivered) will be displayed there. This is how you can show the restaurant you exchanged one of their digital tokens by accepting an invitation, but that you did not complete the meal pick up. At their discretion, the restaurant may offer you a replacement meal code or other compensation, but they are under no obligation to do so.

What happens if I arrive for a meal pick up during the pick up window, but the restaurant food runner never brings me my meal? If you make it to the restaurant during the pick up window and arrive successfully in the app, it is the responsibility of the restaurant to make every effort to get your meal to you on a timely basis. In rare circumstances where that does not happen, you can call or visit the restaurant to ask for a replacement code or other consideration of equal value. We provide an [ask for help] feature inside the app which you can use to call the restaurant should a problem with your meal pick up arise.

What happens if I accept an invitation to a meal pick up or event and it is canceled by the restaurant? In the rare case where a meal pick up or event is cancelled, willingly or unwillingly by the restaurant, you should contact the restaurant directly to request a replacement meal code. Since the restaurant does not have any way of knowing who you are specifically, they can only provide you with a replacement code if you contact them.

What happens if my phone is not working, or I cannot bring it to a pick up? You can use another mobile phone to log into your account with. Simply download the Loyal Cast app and use your login information to access your account. Remember to log out of your Loyal Cast app account once you have used someone else’s phone, to protect your privacy and to secure your unused meal codes.

A better connection with your favorite places that you control.

What else can I do with the Loyal Cast app? The Restaurants section is where you will find a showcase of our partner restaurants. Restaurants are featured there based on their Blackboard publishing status and on your relationship with them. This is where you will find a restaurant’s Blackboard, your digital token count, your active invitation count, access to additional restaurant specific information, and a link to a restaurant’s Loyal Cast hosted web portal, if they are offering that level of service.

What is the Blackboard? Each partner restaurant has a real-time digital blackboard they can use in the app. The Blackboard is where they can reach app users with a brief message about what is going on at the restaurant. It can be anything they want you to know about, including their latest news, food and drink specials or limited time only offerings, upcoming events, great deals, short term incentives to come in and a lot more.

What is a restaurant’s Blackboard publishing status? Restaurants can choose which group of app users they want to publish to. If a restaurant wants to reach all app users, they can publish their Blackboard to everyone. These restaurants are featured by their city. Alternatively, restaurants can choose to publish their blackboards to just their Super Fans, while others may not publish at all.

What is a Super Fan? When you enter a valid meal code from a restaurant into your app, you become one of their Super Fans. In turn, that restaurant becomes one of your My Spots and is featured in that section of your Restaurants, even if they are not publishing their Blackboards to anyone.

How are Super Fans rewarded? By entering one or more meal codes into your app from a restaurant, you are supporting that restaurant in a very meaningful way, whether you purchased those codes, or if they were given to you by someone else. In addition to the invitations they send out to digital token holders, restaurants may choose to publish their Blackboards exclusively to their Super Fans. This Super Fan Exclusive Blackboard may include special in-house discounts, off-menu ordering options, heads-up private information, and other rewards.

What happens if I accept an invitation from a restaurant and use up my last digital token from them, am I still one of their Super Fans? Are they still a My Spot? Your My Spots can hold as many different restaurants as you enter meal codes from. There is no limit. Restaurants want you to continue to support them by entering more meal codes as you use up the ones you have. At the same time, they want to continue to reward you for becoming one of their Super Fans in the first place. So, we created a feature in My Spots we call The Rule of Seven.

What is the Rule of Seven for My Spots? As you enter meal codes from different restaurants, you add them to your My Spots, and you become one of their Super Fans. Even if you use up your last digital token for a restaurant, unless there are at least seven other restaurants in your My Spots, that restaurant continues to be included in your My Spots. If you add a new restaurant(s) to your My Spots for a total of more than seven, then restaurants without any remaining unused digital tokens will be removed sequentially from your My Spots, bringing the total number of your My Spots back to seven.

What are My Favorites? In addition to the restaurants featured in each city tab and your My Spots, you can create your own set of My Favorites. You can include both My Spots and restaurants that are featured in any city listing in your My Favorites. Just tap the red heart next to each restaurant's name to include it in your My Favorites or to remove it. While restaurants do not have access to any of your personal information, they do get a total count of the number of app users who include them in their My Favorites. Restaurants may offer specials or other incentives for visitors who can show that setting in their app.

What are Blackboard notifications and how do I get them? When you select a restaurant as a My Favorites you can choose to receive real-time email and or push notifications when that restaurant publishes an update to their Blackboard. To manage this feature, go to your app settings section.

What are my notification settings options for invitations in the app? You also have control over how you want to receive your invitations from those restaurants you have unused digital tokens from. In Settings, you can select push notifications through the app and/or email notifications. If you turn off both, you will still be able to find active invitations in the app, but you will not receive a notification when they are sent to you. We recommend you select both invitation push notifications and email alerts to enjoy the fullest app experience.

What are invitation reminders? Invitation reminders will remind you of an upcoming pick up window for an invitation you have previously accepted from a restaurant. If you have at least one of the app invitation notifications selected (push or email), then if you also enable invitation reminders in your settings, you should receive a reminder about an hour or so before the meal pick up window begins. In certain circumstances, you may not receive one of these reminders, especially if the invitation was accepted within a few hours of the beginning of the meal pick up window (start time). We recommend you set additional reminders for invitations you have accepted by using the (non-Loyal Cast) mobile alarms or alerts on your phone that you are most familiar with.

Final thoughts about us and why we are unique.

What makes Loyal Cast unique? Loyal Cast was created to help local restaurants provide an all-digital prix fixe meal pick up experience. Now restaurants can offer exclusive meals for pick up and in doing so reward customers like you that support them with your prepaid meal token purchases. Loyal Cast allows restaurants to focus on the best ingredients based on availability, maximize their preparation efficiency, minimize food waste, provide the most favorable times for pick up, and offer you greater value. Chefs can use their imaginations to dream up wonderful meals that may only be offered in limited quantities or for short periods of time. Features like to-your-car delivery can make meal pick up more accessible for customers who might otherwise not be able to leave their cars. With Loyal Cast, restaurants can now offer meal pick up, access to on site or remote events, and more on a fully prepaid basis. Together with restaurants’ in app Blackboards and My Favorites Blackboard update notifications, Loyal Cast is uniquely positioned to deliver an entirely new and exciting local food and drink experience.

Loyal Cast is touchless and cashless. What does that mean? Each of our restaurant partners sets their own price for their meal codes, depending on what kind of prix fixe options they want to offer. A $100 meal code restaurant is offering their prix fixe meals for that price, which also includes all taxes and tips. Each digital token is an all-inclusive purchase. When you arrive for a meal pick up, your meal will be brought to you and once you show your invitation meal code, the transaction is completed – no cash or credit cards are needed. Based on the information you entered when you arrived in the app, your meal can be placed by your food runner anywhere you choose (trunk, backseat, other) making for a touchless pick up, if you prefer. Likewise for invitations that require you to arrive in person, the transaction or entry to an event is fully prepaid and confirmed upon your arrival and status update to delivered.

What makes meal codes the perfect gift? Go to any participating restaurant’s Loyal Cast hosted web portal and purchase their meal codes. Send one to a friend as a gift. They will be thrilled to start receiving invitations from that restaurant (once that meal code is entered into their app account). There is a sense of mystery in what invitations they might get, and the anticipation is always fun. The best part is that because they can choose which invitation they want to accept, there is a great chance your gift will be well received.

How can you use Loyal Cast for paying it forward? We encourage app users to remember those in need and to support local when they can. The Loyal Cast app is free to download, so anyone with access to a smartphone can take advantage of the gift of a meal code. Consider supporting your favorite Loyal Cast partner restaurant by purchasing meal codes for a charity, school, or as a thank you to an employee, teacher, first responder, or as an act of kindness for someone in need. People who receive your gift will appreciate having the opportunity to pick up a chef prepared meal from a local restaurant with the option of to-your-car delivery, when applicable.

How do I contact Loyal Cast? If you need to reach out to us, please send an email to service@loyalcast.com.

Our website address is www.loyalcast.com.