Quebec is home to more than 23,000 restaurants, second only to Ontario among Canadian provinces, and has a culinary culture that reflects it. Québécois build real attachments to the places they love, and word-of-mouth travels fast in a market where community and cuisine are genuinely intertwined. That’s a strong foundation to build a loyalty program on.
The challenge is finding a platform actually built for this market. Most loyalty software were designed with American chains or English-Canadian operators in mind, which means bilingual support, French-language communications, and Quebec-specific privacy requirements are often treated as secondary considerations or excluded entirely.
This guide is written specifically for Quebec restaurant operators: what to look for, what to watch out for, and how to set up a program that actually works for your customers.
The glaring difference is the French-first customer communication requirements under the Charte de la langue française, but the problem isn't just language.
Quebec diners expect to be spoken to in French, and they expect their data to be handled with care—it’s a legal obligation under Law 25.
For enterprise platforms, Quebec is often simply not in scope. For smaller platforms, it's frequently an afterthought. The result is a province with a large, restaurant-dense urban population and almost no locally-aware loyalty software competing for their business.
The fundamentals of a good loyalty program are the same anywhere: drive repeat visits, increase average spend, and give you meaningful data about who your best customers are. But Quebec operators tend to have a few priorities that aren't always top of mind in platforms designed elsewhere.
Running a bilingual loyalty program is less complicated than it sounds, but it does require thinking through the customer experience from both angles.
Some things to pay attention to:
The goal is a program that feels native to every customer who participates, regardless of which language they order in. When it works well, it's invisible. When it doesn't, it's noticeable in ways that undercut the whole effort.
Law 25 (Loi modernisant des dispositions législatives en matière de protection des renseignements personnels) is Quebec's privacy legislation, and it's stricter than the federal PIPEDA framework that applies in the rest of Canada.
It has direct implications for restaurant operators running loyalty programs:
Working with a loyalty platform that understands the complex legal implications of operating in different geographical locations saves you the hassle of doing all the heavy lifting yourself. Afterall, the liability of non-compliance sits with the merchant, not the software vendor. So, choosing the right loyalty platform to work with and knowing how they handle your customer data definitely matters.
DataCandy has been the loyalty platform of choice for some of Quebec's most recognizable restaurant brands (e.g. Cora, Gibby's, Mandy’s) for good reason.
DataCandy's loyalty platform was built for Canadian operators, which means bilingual customer communications are part of how the platform works. Points updates, reward notifications, and automated marketing messages can be sent in French, English, or both, based on the customer's stored language preference. Enrolment flows and customer-facing materials are available in both official languages.
For multi-location groups, DataCandy consolidates customer data across all your locations into a single view. A customer who earns points at your Laval location and redeems them in Longueuil is one customer in your program. That unified profile is what makes it possible to understand how loyal customers actually behave across your network and what it takes to keep them coming back.
The platform also integrates with the POS systems most commonly used by Quebec operators, which means adding it to an existing setup is operationally straightforward. Setting up a restaurant loyalty program typically takes under ten days, and the program is designed so front-of-house staff can explain it in one sentence.
For operators looking at how DataCandy compares to other options, the best loyalty software for Canadian restaurants guide covers the landscape in detail.
If you're setting up a loyalty program for the first time, or moving away from a platform that doesn't fit your market, here's what the process typically looks like.
How your program structure looks should reflect how it best fits your operations, pricing, and how your customers behave.
Examples of goals include:
There are two common loyalty program models used within the restaurant/food and beverage industry: Visit-based programs (digital punch cards) and points-based programs. Both simple to explain, easy for staff to promote, and intuitive for customers.
While points-based programs directly tie rewards to revenue, a visit-based program rewards customers for visit frequency, which typically works well in business operations with lower-value transactions like coffee shops, bakeries, and dessert shops.
Decide whether your program will run in French only, English only, or both.
For most Quebec operators, French-first with English available is the right default. Make sure your platform can store language preference at the individual customer level so communications go out in the right language automatically.
Before you launch, confirm that your enrolment flow collects explicit opt-in consent for each purpose you'll be using customer data. This includes transactional communications (points updates), marketing communications (promotional offers), and any data sharing with third parties.
If you’re trying to drive loyalty sign-ups, you need to increase your program’s exposure. So make sure your loyalty program shows up where your customers can find you:
If you need some inspiration, there are some ways you can further encourage your customers to join your loyalty program.
Apart from strategically placing printed and digital loyalty program promotions, your frontline employees also play an integral part in driving loyalty sign-ups. They’re the ones interacting with customers on a daily basis, which means they need to know how your loyalty program works and how to clearly communicate it to customers.
The pitch for joining a loyalty program should be one or two sentences, in whatever language the customer is speaking. A simple “Do you have a loyalty membership with us? Loyalty members earn 100 points for every $50 they spend which can be accumulated as credits towards your next visit and get a free birthday treat. Would you like to join?” clearly describes the benefits of the loyalty program in one sentence, and can be the difference in a new regular customer or a one-time visitor.
We’ve also put together a guide to help you turn your frontline employees into loyalty advocates with tips and examples.
Quebec's restaurant market deserves to be served by platforms that understand the importance of legal compliance obligations, bilingual communication requirements, and a consumer culture that responds to being treated as a local rather than an afterthought. All of which mean that the loyalty platform you choose matters.
If you're ready to run a loyalty program built for how your business actually operates, DataCandy serves Quebec operators in French and English, with the compliance infrastructure Law 25 requires.
If you're operating in Quebec and serving French-speaking customers, yes. The Charte de la langue française requires that customer-facing commercial communications be available in French. Look for a platform that stores language preference at the customer level and sends communications accordingly.
Law 25 is the primary one. It requires explicit opt-in consent before collecting customer data, gives customers the right to access and delete their information, and mandates breach notification to the CAI and affected individuals if there's a confidentiality incident. These requirements apply to any business serving Quebec residents, regardless of where the business or its software vendor is headquartered. Beyond Law 25, the standard consumer protection provisions of Quebec's Loi sur la protection du consommateur apply to loyalty program terms and conditions.
Yes. DataCandy integrates with the major POS systems used across Quebec, including systems commonly used in quick-service restaurants (QSR), casual dining, and café environments. If you're running a less common system, the DataCandy team can confirm compatibility during the setup process. Most integrations are straightforward and don't require significant technical work on the operator's side.
The first step is an audit: what data are you collecting, for what purposes, and what consent did customers give when they enrolled? If your existing enrolment flow didn't collect explicit opt-in consent, you should consider re-enrolling with updated consent language to be thorough. This is worth doing properly, because the Commission d'accès à l'information has enforcement powers and the fines for serious violations are substantial.