Diners With WiFi: Why and Where To Dine With WiFi

Every smart restaurant offers WiFi to its guests. It is single-handedly the most brilliant possible business move that you can make. Restaurant businesses can use their WiFi as a gateway for further marketing, profit-driving, business growth, and increasing customer satisfaction. So, what are the most popular diners with WiFi?

You may be a customer looking for a diner where you can scroll through social media over a meal. Or you could be a business owner wanting marketing inspiration or wondering what the WiFi hype is about. Either way, we’ve got you covered. This thorough guide will explain diner WiFi from all angles.

In this guide, we’ll introduce you to all the essentials you need to know about diner WiFi. There’ll be a list of the best diners with WiFi. We’ll also include a breakdown of the benefits of offering WiFi and the best steps after launching guest WiFi.

In short, there’s a lot to cover. So diner owners and customers alike sit and get ready to crack the diner WiFi code. Here’s what you all need to know.

What Are Diners and Why Offer WiFi?

Diners are super casual restaurants offering WiFi to keep guests happy and boost their marketing potential. A diner can offer all sorts of cuisines, but typically, they offer an American menu. Think burgers and fries with a layout of small booths and counters. They usually have stainless steel surfaces and a retro interior design.

Diners are a very American concept; they just scream “road trip dining.” They are the sort of places you see in all the classic movies. And, for the most part, all those diners offer customers WiFi.

As you likely know, offering guest WiFi is one of the best restaurant marketing tips. For diner owners wondering how to market their venue, adding some trusty WiFi is a great method. You can use WiFi to set up a captive portal system, collecting valuable contact details for future marketing campaigns. For instance, you can only allow full guest WiFi use once customers enter their email addresses.

Using WiFi to facilitate a captive portal is one of the most common reasons to offer WiFi. It allows diners to collect valuable contact details and reuse them for marketing later.

It also just keeps customers happy, which is what all businesses need to secure those five-star ratings. After all, 74% of guests want WiFi in a restaurant. OfferingiFi at a diner m makes you more likely to get good reviews and repeat visitors. It is a clear win, win. You get extra marketing contacts and good reviews, and customers get a more enjoyable experience.

Top 5 Diners With WiFi

Customers, listen up; we’ve got you the best diners across the US and Canada with WiFi. You don’t need us to tell you how handy it is to have WiFi while you eat. WiFi is always handy, whether updating friends on your latest gossip, uploading road trip pictures, or browsing socials.

Some diners, like Waffle House, don’t have WiFi. So don’t assume that everywhere you go will offer free internet. After carefully researching the most popular diners with WiFi, we found these five to be the best places for dining and WiFi.

1. Tim Hortons

If you’re in Canada, the doughnut and coffee chain Tim Hortons is where to head for free WiFi. This casual diner offers a complimentary WiFi service, meaning you can dine, drink, and browse. It’s ideal for those wanting a casual place to fill their stomach and get free internet.

2. Denny’s

For the most part, Denny’s offers free WiFi, but it does vary a little venue by venue. You’ll need to ask at the branch you’re visiting to double-check.

Denny’s is a much-loved diner that operates internationally, not just in the US. It specializes in American cuisine and is an excellent place for breakfast, lunch, and dinner comfort food.

3. Huddle House

Huddle House is just that delicious and reliable option for diners in the US. Its tagline is “Any meal. Any time”, which is music to your ears when trying to find hearty cuisine. Even better, this chain offers reliable WiFi.

You can tuck into the meal of your choice, enjoying typical American cuisine with reliable WiFi as you dine. It has over 250 locations around America, including Kansas, Alabama, Tennessee, Texas, Florida, and Virginia.

4. IHOP

IHOP is easily one of the most famous diner chains in the US. It serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner nationwide and in dozens of states. It is particularly famous for its pancakes, so we suggest stopping at breakfast.

Moreover, this much-loved chain now has reliable WiFi service. Despite many popular chains opposing WiFi and the prospect of inefficient dining, IHOP encourages web surfers. This is good news for anyone looking for diners with free WiFi in New York, Maine, Ohio, Hawaii, or Florida. IHOP is not just a mid- and southern-state diner but US-wide.

5. Mel’s Diner

Mel’s Diner is slightly less well-known but is still one of the top ten diners in the US. It is a budget-friendly diner set in a classic steel silver exterior. You’ll find breakfast, lunch, and dinner, with the entire menu available all day long. This is dreamy for anyone who craves pancakes or fried eggs as an evening snack.

Mel’s Diner offers good, reliable WiFi for anyone wanting to dine and browse. The chain has 22 venues, predominantly stretching through North California and Nevada. So, if you’re looking for diner restaurants with WiFi in California or Nevada, you know where to go.

As a quick side note, filmmakers have used Mel’s Diner on a few different film sets. These include American Graffiti and the TV show Alice.

Attention Diner Owners: Building on Guest WiFi

So the real question is, “What’s next?” This section is especially for diner owners, as WiFi is only a stepping stone in the grand scheme of marketing. All you need to do is ensure you have good internet speed, a strong password, and a good network name. Once you have set up WiFi, there are so many steps that can amplify your good results even further.

Here are the steps we suggest immediately after setting up a secure guest WiFi system.

1. Set Up a Captive Portal

A captive portal system is the essential first step. This is the net that catches valuable marketing information from anyone and everyone who joins your guest WiFi. When guests click on your network, it triggers the opening of a web page. Guests can only then access your WiFi fully after complying with the queries on that webpage.

This is a great way to collect marketing details when running guest WiFi. However, it also helps to keep your network secure and compliant. This helps to strengthen your brand image and overall trustworthiness. Even coffee shops and shopping malls use this strategy.

2. Collect Emails and Phone Numbers

Collecting email addresses and phone numbers through your captive portal should be your second step. Find a great captive portal software that syncs up with contact databases. This way, you can automatically store all those details for future marketing campaigns.

Email addresses and phone numbers give you access to email marketing and SMS marketing, two of the most effective strategies. SMS marketing has fantastic opening rates and takes minutes to structure effective texts. Email marketing is better for sending out long-form content like newsletters and loyalty program content.

3. Consider Proximity Marketing

At this point, you can consider more technical things, like adding WiFi proximity marketing. There are numerous types of proximity marketing, including Internet, Bluetooth, SMS, and NFC. However, all of these options work off a similar premise, using the physical location of guests to trigger targeted ads.

This is a good option if you want to utilize WiFi to help get customers over your threshold. You aren’t just working on converting the customers inside your diner into loyal customers. It is also a bit like bait for passing customers.

Beambox: Monetizing WiFi

What are the next steps for monetizing WiFi and taking your business to the next level? Well, monetizing WiFi doesn’t just entail directly gaining money for WiFi use — like paying for WiFi use. Instead, it can be the profits you make from providing WiFi.

For instance, using WiFi to collect email addresses can drive sales through promotional emails on a long-term basis. You’ve got to think big and long-term.

You can easily monetize your diner’s WiFi if you play your cards right. All you really need is a captive portal system. A captive portal allows you to barricade access to your WiFi on a conditional basis. It only allows those who provide their contact details to fully access your WiFi, making the exchange more mutually beneficial. You then funnel all those contacts into a secure database, utilizing them for marketing at a later date.

Here at Beambox, we provide all-in-one WiFi marketing software. We can set you up with a captive portal in no time, driving your profits through the ceiling.

Start your Beambox free trial today and take your diner to new heights. It’s no secret that diners with WiFi do better.

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