Tipping. Zero hours. Sexual harassment. Allergens. Fire. Martyn's Law. A wave of new rules has landed on cafés, restaurants, pubs and takeaways — the businesses least able to absorb it. Scan your venue in thirty seconds; we tell you what the EHO, HMRC, the tribunal and the SIA will spot, what to fix, and we start the file for you.
It isn't demand that's closing two licensed venues a day; it's the burden. The 2024–2027 rule changes concentrate on the long tail of independents — the 99% of hospitality that has no compliance manager and schedules its team in a spreadsheet.
You must pass on 100% of tips, allocate them fairly, and publish a written tipping policy — kept for three years. Most venues never wrote one.
Zero- and low-hours staff who work a regular pattern gain a right to a guaranteed-hours offer, plus shift-notice and cancellation pay. Hospitality runs on exactly these contracts. Phasing through 2026–27.
A proactive duty to take reasonable steps to prevent harassment of staff — including by customers. Late closes and lone working make this a real exposure.
Venues that can hold 200+ at once — many mid-size pubs and restaurants — must have simple public-protection procedures. Standard tier needs no consultant.
The free scan finds the gaps; the platform writes the documents, tracks the records, and gives you a public trust mark — at a fraction of a compliance consultant.
Enter your venue and get a personalised, financially-quantified report in under a minute: which rules apply, where you're exposed, and what to fix first.
A written tipping policy generated to the Allocation of Tips Act 2023, with the tronc records and the three-year retention the law expects — not a template you copied once and forgot.
A rolling reference-period tracker that flags which staff are owed a guaranteed-hours offer, generates the offer letter and keeps the audit trail. Ships sensible defaults and updates as the rules are finalised.
A venue-specific harassment risk assessment, a reporting policy and an incident log that helps you build the "reasonable steps" evidence the Worker Protection Act 2023 expects.
FHRS mock-inspection prep, an allergen matrix to Natasha's Law (PPDS), and a digital food-safety record to replace the paper folder that goes missing when the EHO arrives.
A fire risk assessment for smaller venues, a music-licence (PPL PRS) gap check that can surface a £500+/yr exposure, and standard-tier Martyn's Law procedures for 200+ capacity rooms.
There are around 180,000 independent hospitality businesses in the UK, 99% of them small, and the dominant story isn't slow trade — it's a compliance and tax burden that's reframed as existential. CafeGuard is built to take that off your plate: finished documents, live records, a trust badge for your website, and a free scan that shows you exactly where you stand. Planned from £49 a month — a fraction of a traditional compliance consultant.
CafeGuard provides tools and content; it is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice. Guaranteed-hours thresholds reflect the Employment Rights Act 2025 reforms and will be updated as the secondary legislation is confirmed; Martyn's Law is not yet in force, and we cover the standard tier only (200+ capacity venues over 800 are routed to specialist support). Right-to-work checks are handled through a certified identity partner, not as a Home Office substitute. A generated policy, a record and an incident log help you build and evidence your compliance — they don't, on their own, guarantee a defence.