Chope is now Grab: what it means for your restaurant in Singapore

Every Singaporean knows what it means to chope a table: a packet of tissues on a hawker centre seat, and the spot is yours. Chope the platform borrowed that word in 2011 and built the city's best-known restaurant reservation brand on it. Fifteen years later, the tissue packet belongs to a super-app: Grab acquired Chope in July 2024, and by October 2026 the migration into Grab Dine Out is essentially complete.

If your restaurant took bookings through Chope, this is not a cosmetic rebrand. The commercial model, the loyalty currency your regulars collect and the place where your guest relationships live have all changed. This guide lays out what has actually happened, what Grab Dine Out offers merchants today, and the questions worth asking before you renew, including whether it is time to run your own booking channel with no commission at all alongside any marketplace.

What actually happened: the timeline

The facts, in order:

• July 2024: Grab announces the acquisition of Chope's Southeast Asian operations for an undisclosed sum. At the time, TechCrunch reported that Chope listed around 13,000 eateries across its markets and had raised more than US$64 million from investors including Ant Group. Grab had already bought the HungryGoWhere brand in 2022, so this was its second move into dining discovery.
• 2025 to 2026: Chope's consumer deals move over to Grab Dine Out. The chope.co site itself now tells diners "Our Deals have Moved" and points them to Grab.
• September 2026: the old "Chope for Restaurants" B2B site no longer exists as a destination. As of late September 2026, restaurants.chope.co redirects straight to the consumer homepage at chope.co. The standalone merchant brand is being absorbed.
• October 2026: the loyalty switchover. Per Chope's own Chope-Dollars page, diners earn Chope-Dollars only for bookings attended before 15 October 2026, membership tier benefits conclude on 14 October 2026, and future rewards come as GrabCoins earned through Grab Dine Out. Existing Chope-Dollar balances remain redeemable.

Add the wider context: Quandoo announced in March 2026 that it is shutting down worldwide, with new bookings ending on 30 September 2026 and the platform going offline by 31 December 2026. We wrote a full migration guide for Quandoo restaurants. In the space of two years, Singapore's reservation marketplace landscape has consolidated dramatically, and most of what remains points back to one company: Grab.

What Grab Dine Out offers merchants today

To be fair to Grab, the merchant proposition is substantial. According to Grab's own merchant page for dine-in solutions, the package covers:

• Reservations from inside the Grab app, plus, in Grab's words, the ability to "extend your reach to take reservations from Chope and its affiliates including Google Maps, TripAdvisor and more".
• Dine Out Deals: discounted vouchers and set menus surfaced to Grab users browsing for somewhere to eat.
• Deposits and pre-purchased menus, positioned as protection against last-minute cancellations and a way to smooth kitchen workflow during peak periods.
• Automated reservation confirmations, which Grab claims "reduce no-show rates by up to 67%". Treat that number for what it is: a vendor's own marketing figure, published without methodology. No independent, citable no-show statistic for Singapore exists, from Grab or anyone else.
• A loyalty programme spanning GrabFood and in-store transactions, building what Grab describes as "a customer database for your brand".

What the page does not show is a price list. Grab states that "the fees for Dine Out Deals are not the same as food delivery" and invites merchants to "look out for co-funding and trial commissions". In other words: pricing is negotiated, promotional, and subject to change. For reference, before the acquisition Chope's model was widely reported as a fee of roughly a dollar per seated diner plus subscription tiers, with Eat App's July 2026 Singapore guide citing paid tiers in the S$69 to S$199 per month range. Those are third-party figures for the old Chope; get current numbers from Grab in writing before you sign anything.

The loyalty switchover: from your diners' Chope-Dollars to Grab's GrabCoins

For diners, the change is simple enough: book through Grab Dine Out, earn GrabCoins, spend them anywhere in the Grab ecosystem, from rides to deliveries.

For you, it is worth pausing on what that means. Chope-Dollars were a dining-specific currency: the points your guests earned eating at your restaurant could only be spent on more dining. GrabCoins are a super-app currency. The reward for a meal at your restaurant can now subsidise a ride to the airport or a delivery from a competitor's kitchen. The loyalty loop no longer closes inside the F&B world, let alone inside your restaurant.

There is a second-order effect too. A marketplace loyalty programme builds attachment to the marketplace, not to you. The diner who books you through an app to earn its coins is one push notification away from booking someone else through the same app next week. If you want loyalty that belongs to your restaurant, you have to build it on your own channel; our guide to restaurant customer loyalty covers how to do that without a points scheme at all.

Four questions to ask before you renew

None of this means you should storm out of Grab Dine Out. It does mean you should renegotiate with your eyes open. Four questions matter.

What will each seated diner actually cost you?

Marketplace economics run on per-cover or commission-style fees: the more diners the platform sends, the more you pay, including for regulars who would have booked you directly anyway. With Grab's dine-in fees not published and framed around introductory "co-funding and trial commissions", insist on the full rate card after the trial period, in writing, before committing. A fee that looks small per diner compounds quickly across a full Friday service.

Who owns your guest data?

Grab's pitch includes building "a customer database for your brand", and that is genuinely useful. But ask the practical questions: can you export every booking, phone number, email address and dining preference, at any time, in a usable format? What happens to that data if you leave? Under Singapore's PDPA you have obligations towards your guests' personal data regardless of which platform holds it; our guide to PDPA for restaurants in Singapore goes through them. The platform consolidation of the past two years, Chope absorbed, Quandoo gone, is a reminder that the only guest database you permanently control is the one you can export and keep.

What happens to your regulars' habits?

Your regulars who booked through Chope for a decade now earn GrabCoins for booking through Grab. Their habit is being migrated to a new interface where your restaurant sits beside every other restaurant, ranked by an algorithm you do not control, often with a deal attached. It is worth deciding deliberately which guests you want booking through a marketplace and which you want booking with you directly, and then making the direct route the easiest one: a booking button on your website, on Instagram, and on your Google Business Profile.

How dependent do you want to be on a single ecosystem?

Grab already dominates food delivery in Singapore and now holds the biggest name in reservations. Concentration is convenient right up until terms change. TheFork left Australia, Quandoo is leaving everywhere; platforms do change strategy, and merchants absorb the disruption. The defence is not to boycott platforms, it is to make sure they are one channel among several rather than the place your entire book lives.

Let's be honest: what Grab genuinely does well

We build a reservation product ourselves, so weigh our bias, but honesty cuts both ways. Grab's consumer reach in Singapore is enormous, and being discoverable inside an app that millions of people open daily is real marketing power, especially for a new opening that nobody is searching for yet. Co-funded deals can fill quiet Tuesday covers you would not have won otherwise. And features like deposits and pre-purchased menus are exactly the right tools for peak periods such as reunion dinner season; we cover the mechanics in our guide to Chinese New Year restaurant bookings in Singapore.

If discovery is your bottleneck, a marketplace presence can pay for itself. The mistake is letting the marketplace become the only door into your dining room.

Building a booking channel you own alongside

Here is the structural alternative, and yes, it is the one we sell. ViteUneTable is a reservation system, not a marketplace: bookings come from your own website, your Google Business Profile and your social profiles, and land in a diary you control.

The parts that matter in the context of this article:

• The free version is unlimited. Unlimited bookings, unlimited covers, no trial clock. It is a version, not a teaser.
• 0% commission, no per-cover fees, ever. A fully booked Saturday costs you the same as an empty Monday: nothing on the free version.
• Your guest data stays yours. Every booking, contact and note is exportable at any time. If you leave, you take everything.
• The paid Pack Standard, at 29 € excl. VAT per month, adds email reminders for confirmations and "Reserve with Google" so diners can book directly from Google Search and Maps.

Two honest caveats. ViteUneTable brings you zero marketplace traffic: it converts the demand you already generate through Google, Instagram and word of mouth, it does not manufacture demand the way Grab's app can. And our pricing is in euros rather than Singapore dollars, because we are a European company; the free version costs nothing in any currency, so the simplest way to judge us is to try it on your own website this week. For a full market picture, our comparison of restaurant reservation systems in Singapore puts every option side by side, per-cover fees included.

Frequently asked questions

Is Chope shutting down in Singapore?

No. Diners can still book through Chope, and the brand remains live. What has changed is ownership and structure: Grab acquired Chope's Southeast Asian operations in July 2024, deals have moved to Grab Dine Out, the standalone merchant site now redirects to the consumer homepage, and from 15 October 2026 rewards are earned as GrabCoins rather than Chope-Dollars.

What happens to my guests' unused Chope-Dollars?

According to Chope's own programme page, existing Chope-Dollar balances remain valid and redeemable after the switchover; what ends is the earning of new Chope-Dollars for bookings attended from 15 October 2026, and membership tier benefits conclude on 14 October 2026.

How much does Grab Dine Out cost a restaurant?

Grab does not publish a rate card for dine-in services. Its merchant page says fees differ from food delivery and mentions co-funding and trial commissions during the introduction period. Before the acquisition, Chope's fees were reported by third parties at roughly S$1 per seated diner plus subscription tiers between S$69 and S$199 per month. Ask Grab for current written pricing, including what applies once any trial ends.

Can I use Grab Dine Out and my own booking system at the same time?

Yes, and for many restaurants that is the sensible setup: the marketplace for discovery by new diners, and a commission-free system on your own website, Google profile and social media for regulars and direct bookings. The goal is to make the direct channel the easiest path for anyone who already knows you.

Do reservations made through Grab reduce no-shows?

Grab claims its automated confirmation prompts reduce no-show rates by up to 67%, but that is the vendor's own marketing figure with no published methodology, and there is no independent Singapore-wide no-show statistic. Confirmation reminders, deposits for large groups and a clear cancellation policy do help whichever system you use; they are standard features rather than something unique to any one platform.