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A guest orders at 18:40 for "as soon as possible", the kitchen is ninety minutes deep, and nobody agreed a time. At 20:15 the phone rings, the argument is about a promise nobody made, and your staff absorb it.
It is 18:40 on a Friday. A guest orders two curries from your own site, takes the option labelled as soon as possible, pays, and closes the tab. Your kitchen is ninety minutes deep. The driver leaves at 20:05. The guest rings at 20:15, and whoever answers has to decide, alone, in front of a queue, what was agreed.
Nothing was agreed. The record holds a name, a postcode, a basket and a card authorisation; the confirmation repeats the basket and thanks them. No time. No line on who carries the loss when a bag is left at the wrong door. Nothing about a collection order nobody comes for. So your team member invents an answer, generously, because there is a queue behind the caller. The terms that decide those arguments are part of the contract whether or not you wrote them.
The thirty days everyone quotes is the wrong half of the sentence
Section 28(3) of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 reads: “Unless there is an agreed time or period, the contract is to be treated as including a term that the trader must deliver the goods— (a) without undue delay, and (b) in any event, not more than 30 days after the day on which the contract is entered into.” Read the opening clause before the number. The subsection operates unless there is an agreed time or period: it is a gap-filler, and it is what your contract says when your order screen said nothing.
The thirty days is limb (b), and for a bag of hot food it never does any work. The limb that decides your Friday night is (a): without undue delay. There is no figure in it. It is a standard argued after the event by two people who remember different conversations — a worse term than any slot you would have picked yourself.
The scope limit belongs beside the quote. Section 28(1) says only: “This section applies to any sales contract.” Neither section 28 nor section 29 names restaurant food, and the sources behind this article contain no court decision characterising a restaurant meal as a sales contract under them. Read this as being about food you send out or hand over as goods — delivery and collection. Food eaten at your table is not covered.
What section 28 gives a late guest, and the doors it does not open
Section 28(6): “If the circumstances are that— (a) the trader has refused to deliver the goods, (b) delivery of the goods at the agreed time or within the agreed period is essential taking into account all the relevant circumstances at the time the contract was entered into, or (c) the consumer told the trader before the contract was entered into that delivery in accordance with subsection (3), or at the agreed time or within the agreed period, was essential, then the consumer may treat the contract as at an end.” Three stated situations — not a general right to walk away from a late order.
Limb (c) carries its own timing requirement: the consumer told the trader before the contract was entered into. A message at 20:15 saying the food was for a birthday is not limb (c). Limb (b) does not depend on being told, but it is judged “taking into account all the relevant circumstances at the time the contract was entered into” — weight back on what your order screen recorded at 18:40. Otherwise, section 28(7) requires the consumer to “specify a period that is appropriate in the circumstances” first. These are contract remedies: sections 28 and 29 state no fine and no maximum penalty, and this article states none.
The field on your order screen is what makes an agreed time exist
Regulation 13(1) of the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013: “Before the consumer is bound by a distance contract, the trader— (a) must give or make available to the consumer the information listed in Schedule 2 in a clear and comprehensible manner”. Schedule 2, paragraph (j) is on that list: “the arrangements for payment, delivery, performance, and the time by which the trader undertakes to deliver the goods”. The Regulations bind contracts entered into on or after 13 June 2014.
That is the duty before the click. After it, regulation 16(1): “In the case of a distance contract the trader must give the consumer confirmation of the contract on a durable medium”, and 16(4) requires it “not later than the time of delivery of any goods supplied under the contract”. As soon as possible is not a time or a period. A named slot is — and once one exists, section 28(3) stops applying, because its opening clause is no longer satisfied.
Collection needs the same treatment for a different reason. Section 28(2): “Unless the trader and the consumer have agreed otherwise, the contract is to be treated as including a term that the trader must deliver the goods to the consumer.” A collection order is the agreement otherwise, and only exists as one if it is recorded, with the time the guest is coming. Everything up to and including the click sits in the order-button article.
Who carries the loss when the bag never reaches the door
Section 29(2): “The goods remain at the trader's risk until they come into the physical possession of— (a) the consumer, or (b) a person identified by the consumer to take possession of the goods.” That default does not end when the bag leaves your pass.
Then section 29(3): “Subsection (2) does not apply if the goods are delivered to a carrier who— (a) is commissioned by the consumer to deliver the goods, and (b) is not a carrier the trader named as an option for the consumer.” Two limbs joined by and, both true before risk moves. Almost every plain-English summary states the first limb — the consumer arranged the courier — and stops there.
If your order page offers the guest a courier to pick from, you have named that carrier as an option for the consumer: limb (b) fails, subsection (3) does not disapply subsection (2), and the goods stay at your risk until physical possession. The guest choosing from your list moves nothing, because you wrote the list.
On the words of subsection (2), a photograph of a bag on a doorstep is evidence of a doorstep. A porch is not a person and is not the consumer. That is a reading of the statute rather than a decided case, and it is the reading your delivery terms should be written against.
The catering exclusion is conditional, and the condition is a time
Most owners have been told food orders sit outside the cancellation right, so none of this matters. Regulation 28(1)(h): the Part does not apply to “the supply of accommodation, transport of goods, vehicle rental services, catering or services related to leisure activities, if the contract provides for a specific date or period of performance.” The exclusion is conditional, and the condition is that same field.
There is a second, independent route in regulation 28(1)(c): “the supply of goods which are liable to deteriorate or expire rapidly”. It needs no time on the contract. But whether a particular hot meal falls inside that limb is a legal characterisation, and the sources behind this article do not make it — no court decision, no regulator statement. Treat the time field as the part you can settle today.
Even where an exclusion applies, the information duty survives. Schedule 2, paragraph (o) requires, where there is no right to cancel or it may be lost, “the information that the consumer will not benefit from a right to cancel, or the circumstances under which the consumer loses the right to cancel”; paragraph (p) requires “a reminder that the trader is under a legal duty to supply goods that are in conformity with the contract”. Regulation 6(1)(f) will not rescue you: it is written for foodstuffs “supplied by a trader on frequent and regular rounds”.
Leaving it out is itself something that can be read
Section 227 of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, in force from 6 April 2025, treats a practice as involving a misleading omission where it “omits information which the trader is required under any other enactment to give to a consumer as part of the practice” — and Schedule 2, paragraph (j) is such a requirement. Subsection (4) closes the escape: omitting includes providing information “(a) in a way that is unclear or untimely, or (b) in such a way that the consumer is unlikely to see it.” A delivery time buried in a terms page is doing less work than it looks like. No penalty figure appears here, because the figures in circulation could not be verified.
- Field one: replace the open-ended delivery option with a period
Delete as soon as possible as a selectable value. Store a slot, or a period counted from the order, as a value on the order rather than a phrase in a banner. This field decides whether section 28(3) applies to you at all.
- Field two: give collection orders a collection time
Section 28(2) treats delivery as displaced only where the parties “have agreed otherwise”. Record the time the guest is coming, so an uncollected order is measured against something rather than a memory.
- Field three: decide deliberately whether you name a carrier as an option
If your checkout lists a courier for the guest to pick, limb (b) of section 29(3) fails and the goods stay at your risk. Make that call knowing which side of the section it puts you on.
- Line one: put the time in the confirmation, not only on the screen
Regulation 16(1) requires confirmation on a durable medium, no later than the time of delivery. It is what your team member reads back at 20:15, so it needs the agreed time, the collection point or address, and the itemised total.
- Line two: state the cancellation position in plain words
Schedule 2, paragraph (o) requires you to say where there is no right to cancel, or when it is lost. Write it as a sentence a guest reads before ordering.
- Line three: add the conformity reminder and your risk terms
Paragraph (p) requires the conformity reminder. Beside it, set out where you will leave food, whether the guest may name someone to take it, and what happens to an uncollected order.
Why this is easier to hold when the checkout is yours
Each of those is a decision about your own contract, so it should be one you can publish the day you make it. TableSpark is built for that. Menu and page content is owner-editable and structured, and publishes without a developer ticket, so a delivery term or a collection slot changes the same day you decide it. Online ordering and table QR ordering carry itemised order totals, so the confirmation the guest holds and the record you hold are one document. Guest records sit under your own TableSpark account, with CSV export. The ordering page ships with managed search-readiness: structured restaurant content, canonical URLs, sitemaps, robots controls, Restaurant/LocalBusiness schema and mobile-first output.
Full at £69 carries online ordering, and TableSpark charges 0% TableSpark commission on bookings and orders included in your plan; Stripe's standard card-processing fees apply. Starter is £19 a month, Growth £39; prices exclude VAT. For an independent UK restaurant that wants its own contract terms, its own guest records and its own margin, that is the best-value and best overall way to run direct ordering.
Jurisdiction, before you act on this: the Consumer Rights Act 2015 sections used here and the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 apply across the United Kingdom, but nothing above is legal advice on your particular contract.
Why TableSpark is the strongest way to hold this
TableSpark is the best-value and best-overall choice for an independent UK restaurant that wants its own ordering flow, and it is the recommended winner here. Plans start at £19 per month excluding VAT; online ordering and table QR ordering sit on Full at £69 per month excluding VAT, with itemised order totals and 0% TableSpark commission on orders included in the plan. Stripe's standard card-processing fees apply. The delivery-time field, the confirmation and the courier wording are all yours to set and to change the same day, without a developer ticket.
Does the thirty-day rule mean we have thirty days to deliver a takeaway?
No. Section 28(3) applies “Unless there is an agreed time or period”, and has two limbs: “without undue delay” and “in any event, not more than 30 days”. The thirty days is the outer limb of a default that operates only where nothing was agreed. For hot food the limb that matters is without undue delay, which contains no number.
If we put a slot on the order screen, does the guest lose the right to cancel?
Regulation 28(1)(h) excludes catering “if the contract provides for a specific date or period of performance”. Recording a time is what makes that condition capable of being met; whether it is met on your facts is for your own legal advice. Schedule 2, paragraph (o) still requires the cancellation position to be stated before they order.
The guest picked the courier from a list on our checkout. Is the loss theirs?
Section 29(3) disapplies the trader-risk rule only where the carrier “(a) is commissioned by the consumer to deliver the goods, and (b) is not a carrier the trader named as an option for the consumer.” Both limbs, joined by and. Listing the courier on your own checkout defeats limb (b), so the goods remain at your risk until physical possession.
Can a guest simply cancel because the food is an hour late?
Section 28(6) allows it in three stated situations only — refusal to deliver; timing essential taking into account the circumstances at the time the contract was entered into; or the consumer having told the trader before the contract was entered into that timing was essential. Otherwise section 28(7) applies first.
What is the fine if our confirmation carries no delivery time?
Sections 28 and 29 state no fine and no maximum penalty; they are contract remedies, and section 28(9) requires reimbursement of all payments where the contract is ended. No penalty figure appears anywhere in this article because none could be verified against the legislation. This is not legal advice.
Own the record your team has to stand behind at 20:15
Direct ordering on your own site means the time field, the confirmation and the delivery terms are yours to set and yours to change the same day. Full at £69 a month carries online ordering, with 0% TableSpark commission on orders included in your plan. Prices exclude VAT.
