How Many Regulars Do You Actually Have

Ask an owner how many regulars they have and you get a number, delivered confidently.

Ask how it was arrived at and the confidence goes. It is a feeling — usually the number of faces they can picture.

Why the feeling is wrong in both directions

It over-counts the visible. ⚠️ The people who talk to you are memorable. The quiet weekly guest who deals with one member of staff is not.

It under-counts the off-peak. You are there on Fridays. The Tuesday regulars are somebody else's regulars, and they do not exist in your mental list.

It includes people who stopped. ⚠️ Lapsed guests stay on the mental list for a year or more — you have not seen them, and you have not noticed not seeing them.

Defining it

The definition matters more than the count, and there is no universal one.

By frequency: more than N visits in a period. Simple, and it misses the twice-a-year guest who spends heavily and always returns.

By pattern: visits at a predictable interval, whatever the interval. ⚠️ Better for most venues — it catches the monthly guest and excludes the person who came four times in one week and never again.

By recency plus repeat: more than one visit, and one within their own normal gap. Usually the most useful single definition.

Pick one and write it down. ⚠️ Any consistent definition beats an inconsistent good one, because the value is in watching it move.

What the number is for

Not vanity. Three specific uses:

Sizing what you can do. ⚠️ A message to "our regulars" reaches a specific number of people. Knowing it changes what you expect from it.

Watching the trend. The direction matters far more than the level. Falling regulars with steady takings means new guests are covering a leak.

Finding the ones who lapsed. The list produced as a by-product, and it is the highest-value list in the business.

What to do the first time you produce it

Expect it to be lower than the feeling. ⚠️ Consistently, across venues — the mental list includes people who stopped coming.

Look at the ones you did not recognise. There will be several. They are regulars nobody at management level knows exist, and finding them out is worth the whole exercise.

Then compare it to last year, if you can. The direction is the finding.

The one to add

Spend, not just visits.

⚠️ A regular who comes weekly and spends little is a different asset from one who comes monthly and spends a great deal — both matter, and treating them as one number hides which is changing.

Three to hold

Regulars by your stated definition, monthly. ⚠️ The definition written down, or the number is not comparable to itself.

New regulars gained and lost, per month. The two flows. A steady total can hide substantial churn in both directions.

Share of takings from regulars. ⚠️ Frequently much higher than expected, and it is the argument for spending attention there rather than on acquisition.

Where the record has to sit

Producing this needs visits attached to people, over time, on one record. If bookings are a diary and takings are a total, "how many regulars" cannot be answered and the number stays a feeling.

tasteck keeps visit history on the guest record, so a definition can be applied rather than estimated.

You do have regulars, and the number is real. It is just not the one in your head, and the difference between them is a list of people worth knowing about.