UK Hospitality Tech Startup DirectDine Goes Live with a Platform That Hands Restaurant Owners Back Control of Their Business
The platform unifies online ordering, an offline-capable POS, kitchen display, driver tracking, reservations, and a built-in CRM into one subscription — with no commission taken on a single order.
A new technology platform is setting out to fundamentally change how independent restaurants, bars, hotels, and food operators across the United Kingdom manage their digital operations. DirectDine, developed by SeekaHost Technologies Ltd. and available now at directdine.tech, consolidates eight separate operational portals into a single, flat-fee subscription, replacing the fragmented mix of delivery apps, POS systems, booking tools, and customer databases that most restaurant operators currently rely on.
The platform arrives at a pivotal moment for the UK food service sector, where many independent operators are wrestling with rising ingredient costs, increased labour expenses, and delivery marketplace commissions that can consume up to 30% of each order placed through third-party platforms. DirectDine’s founding premise is straightforward: a restaurant’s customers, order history, and revenue should belong to the restaurant — not to an intermediary.
“The UK hospitality industry has been underserved by technology for too long. Restaurant owners have been forced to stitch together five or six different tools — each with its own subscription, its own login, and its own data silo — just to run a kitchen. DirectDine was built from the ground up to end that. Everything an operator needs, from the customer’s first click to the driver’s last delivery, lives in one place.”
— Kasun Sameera, Managing Director, SeekaHost Technologies Ltd.
The Problem: Fragmented Tools, Mounting Costs
A typical UK independent restaurant today operates across a patchwork of disconnected systems: a delivery marketplace for online orders, a separate POS terminal, a third-party table reservation tool, a loyalty card provider, and a basic spreadsheet or CRM to track returning customers. This setup creates five separate monthly bills, five different logins for staff, and — critically — no single view of the customer journey from first order to loyal regular.
Beyond the operational friction, the financial cost is considerable. Commission-based delivery platforms charge between 15% and 35% on every order, meaning a restaurant turning over £500,000 in annual delivery revenue could be paying upwards of £150,000 per year to platforms it does not own. DirectDine replaces this model with a single monthly subscription, allowing operators to process unlimited orders through their own branded storefront at zero commission.
The Solution: Eight Portals. One Platform. One Price.
DirectDine ships as a complete ecosystem of eight purpose-built portals, all running on a single codebase and accessible under one account:
- Branded Customer Storefront: A mobile-first ordering website supporting both delivery and collection, customised with the operator’s branding, photography, and menu.
- Customer Account Portal: A self-service hub for diners to manage their order history, saved addresses, loyalty points, gift cards, and store credits.
- 24-Panel Admin Dashboard: The operator’s command centre — covering live order management, refunds, menu editing, staff permissions, zone pricing, promotions, and detailed sales reports.
- Kitchen Display System: Live digital order tickets displayed in real-time Kanban columns, colour-coded by urgency. No paper, no lost tickets, no shouting across the pass.
- Waiter App: A PIN-authenticated mobile app allowing front-of-house staff to take table orders and fire them directly to the kitchen without leaving the floor.
- Driver Portal: An in-house driver management tool with order claiming, GPS-guided multi-leg routing, live order maps, and real-time driver earnings tracking.
- Offline-First POS Terminal: A full point-of-sale and table reservation system engineered to operate without an internet connection. Every order and payment taken offline is automatically queued and synced when connectivity returns.
- Customer Pickup Display: A customer-facing collection board that displays order numbers when ready, reducing counter congestion and removing the need for staff to manually call out orders.
Transparent, Flat-Fee Pricing — No Hidden Charges
DirectDine is offered on three subscription tiers designed to scale with the operator. The Solo plan is built for single-site kitchens and independent takeaways. The Growth plan supports expanding operators managing up to three locations. The Group plan is a bespoke, enterprise-grade package for multi-site restaurant groups and hotel chains, including unlimited sites, dedicated onboarding, a named account manager, and custom configuration. All eight portals are included on every plan.
There are no per-order fees, no commission charges, and no charges for adding additional kitchen display screens or driver accounts. Card processing is handled directly by the operator’s chosen payment provider at published rates, with no markup applied by DirectDine.
“We priced DirectDine so that a busy independent restaurant switching from a third-party delivery app will typically recover the full annual subscription cost within the first two to three weeks of trading through their own storefront. The platform pays for itself, and everything after that goes back into the business.”
— Kasun Sameera, Managing Director, SeekaHost Technologies Ltd.
Who DirectDine Is Built For
DirectDine is purpose-built for the breadth of the UK’s food and beverage sector: independent restaurants and takeaways looking to reduce delivery platform dependency; casual and fine dining establishments seeking to modernise their tableside and reservation experience; bars and gastropubs running full kitchen operations; hotel restaurants and in-room dining services requiring a system that integrates across front-of-house, kitchen, and delivery; and multi-site restaurant groups that need consistent operations across locations without paying per-site premiums.
The platform’s smart delivery zone tool gives operators precise control over their delivery geography — drawing custom GPS boundaries around their kitchen and assigning distinct delivery fees by zone. This allows restaurants to protect margins on longer-distance deliveries without pricing out nearby customers or capping their reach arbitrarily.
Live Demo Available Now — No Sign-Up Required
A fully interactive live demonstration of all eight DirectDine portals is available at demo.directdine.tech without requiring an account or registration. Restaurant owners, bar managers, hotel food and beverage directors, and hospitality group operators can explore the complete platform in a live environment — from placing a test order through the customer storefront to watching it appear on the kitchen display — before committing to any conversation with the sales team.
Operators wishing to discuss pricing, onboarding timelines, or bespoke configuration for multi-site deployments can book a 15-minute discovery call and receive a flat-fee quote at directdine.tech/contact.html.
What’s Coming Next
SeekaHost Technologies is developing a pipeline of additional features and integrations for the DirectDine platform, scheduled for rollout across the next two to four quarters:
- QR-code dine-in ordering — guests scan a table QR to order and pay without waiting for a waiter
- Native iOS and Android apps for the waiter and driver portals
- Self-service order kiosk interface for restaurant and hotel lobby deployments
- WhatsApp and SMS marketing tools integrated directly into the built-in CRM
- Cross-location analytics dashboard for multi-site group operators
- API integrations with UK accounting platforms including Xero and QuickBooks for automated reconciliation
- Loyalty programme builder with points, stamps, and personalised offers
About SeekaHost Technologies Ltd.
SeekaHost Technologies Ltd. is a UK-based software engineering company specialising in the design and development of commercial-grade technology platforms for small and medium-sized businesses. The company’s engineering team operates across the United Kingdom and India, delivering products spanning hospitality technology, scheduling tools, screen recording software, and web infrastructure. DirectDine is the company’s flagship product in the hospitality sector. Current products in the SeekaHost Technologies portfolio include DirectDine (directdine.tech), TimeTide (timetide.app), CloudWebHosting.app and websitehosting.app.
MEDIA CONTACT
- Kasun Sameera, Managing Director
- SeekaHost Technologies Ltd.
- Platform: www.directdine.tech
- Live Demo: demo.directdine.tech
- Book a Discovery Call: https://www.directdine.tech/contact
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