Card machine leads from new venues and shops

A new restaurant can open without a website. It can't open without a way to take payment. That makes new venues and shops some of the most time-sensitive leads in small business sales: they will choose a card machine and a till, probably in the next few weeks, and they'll usually go with whoever reached them first with a sensible offer.

Why new companies, not existing ones

Getting an established café to switch providers means fighting contracts, termination fees and the "it works, why change it" feeling. A new café has none of that. It's starting from nothing, it's comparing options, and it's often doing so in a rush because the fit-out has overrun and opening night is fixed.

New hospitality and retail businesses register as companies all the time. They're on the public register from day one, usually weeks before they open, with SIC codes that tell you what they are: 56101 for licensed restaurants, 56102 for unlicensed restaurants and cafés, 56302 for pubs and bars, the 47 codes for shops.

Spotting the ones still fitting out

The best leads haven't opened yet. A few signs:

A parked or "coming soon" website. They've bought the domain but the site isn't live, which usually means the premises aren't either.
A registered office at a home address rather than the venue. Common while the lease is being sorted.
A very recent incorporation date, in the last two or three weeks.

A venue that's already trading isn't a lost cause, but you're now competing with whoever got there first.

What new venue owners actually ask about

First-time owners tend to care about a short list of things, in roughly this order:

Fees, ideally one simple number they can understand.
When the money arrives. Next-day settlement matters a lot when cash flow is tight in the first months.
Contract length. Nobody starting out wants to be tied in for four years.
Pay at table and a till that works with it, for restaurants. Table plans, splitting bills, tips.
Stock and online orders, for shops and takeaways.

Lead with whichever of those your offer is best at. "Flat monthly fee, next-day settlement, no long contract" is a complete pitch for a new café.

Reaching them

The directors of every new company are on the public register, so you can write to a named person at the registered office. Email to a generic company address is allowed for limited companies under PECR if you say who you are and include an opt-out. If you visit in person, the fit-out period is when they're on site and thinking about exactly this.

You can find new venues yourself with the Companies House advanced search, filtered by SIC code and incorporation date (there's more on that in our guide to finding new companies). Or our card payments lens sends you the new restaurants, cafés, bars and shops in your area every morning, with venues still fitting out scored highest and the directors named on each lead.