Mastercard teams up with OpenTable to pick up the bill for diners in UK and Ireland

Throughout September OpenTable and Mastercard will be celebrating Dine Local, a month-long homage to dining out, with more than 200 restaurants offering special offers to diners across the UK and Ireland.

As part of this, Mastercard and OpenTable have teamed up to surprise and delight lucky diners across the UK and Ireland with the chance to eat and drink for free* in their chosen local restaurant. Every evening, during September, Mastercard will treat diners, who are in the right place at the right time, with a Priceless Surprise by paying their bill including food and soft drinks, at thirty OpenTable restaurants taking part in the Dine Local campaign.

The UK’s dining industry has experienced a hard few months and whilst diners are showing confidence in eating out again, the Dine Local campaign has been initiated to encourage people to continue to dine out and support their local restaurants and community going forward.

Restaurants across London, Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dublin will offer limited-time, great-value specials to showcase their menu and attract diners. Restaurants get the chance to reconnect with their loyal clientele while attracting new diners to take part in an uplifting local initiative, and diners have a unique opportunity to try out neighbourhood gems while supporting local restaurants. Visit www.opentable.co.uk/restaurantweek to discover the restaurants taking part and the special menus available.

The first Priceless Surprise will take place in Hertfordshire on 1^st September, before moving to London then across the country to bring truly Priceless moments to diners. To keep the locations under wraps, OpenTable asks diners to simply book and support the Dine Local restaurants through its website   to be in with a chance to be delighted on the night.

Janne Karppinen, Head of Retail at Mastercard commented on the campaign. “It is great to see people back in restaurants and eating out safely with friends and families. 2020 has been a hard year so we’re pleased to work with OpenTable to bring moments of joy and excitement to customers. We have extended the offer not only to Mastercard customers, but to everyone who is in the restaurant at the right place on the right night – a truly Priceless Surprise.”

Angela Altvater, Marketing Director, OpenTable EMEA commented “We are pleased to see that the restaurant sector in the UK is slowly recovering. It is clear that many people really missed the experience of dining out at a restaurant over the past few months. As a partner to the industry, it is particularly important for us to help the restaurant community get back on their feet and to get diners excited about dining out again and rediscover old and new favourites in their local area.”

All the signs show that people in the UK are eager to get out to dine again. In a recent survey¹ conducted by OpenTable, 65% of Brits answered that the thing they were most excited about restaurants reopening was eating delicious food. 94% of those surveyed stated that the support of local restaurants is important to them and 62% said they planned to eat out more or at least as often as before the lockdown.