Online ordering system for Colchester takeaways and restaurants

Chefzi is an online ordering system for takeaways and restaurants in Colchester: your own ordering site and branded Android app (iOS coming soon), 0% commission, plans from £9 a month billed yearly, first month free with no card, month to month with no contract. The FSA register lists 141 takeaway and sandwich shop premises and 535 restaurant and café premises in Colchester (pulled 13 November 2026).

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How many takeaways and restaurants Colchester has

Colchester registers 1,662 food businesses of every kind with the Food Standards Agency. 141 of them are takeaway or sandwich shop premises and 535 are restaurants, cafés or canteens. Among the 45 councils the FSA lists in East of England, Colchester is number 11 for takeaway premises.

Restaurants and cafés outnumber takeaways by more than two to one (535 against 141), so sit-down kitchens that also do collection are a big part of the market.

Takeaway density: 7.0 premises per 10,000 residents (population 201,163, ONS mid-2025 estimate), below 9.1 across the UK and 7.2 in East of England. Visitors and commuters are not counted in the population, so town centres read high.

Hygiene results for takeaways

122 takeaway premises in Colchester have a published rating. 81.1% of them hold a 5, against 62% across England (+19.1 points), and 0.8% are rated 0 to 2. In East of England as a whole, 67.4% of rated takeaways hold a 5, so Colchester is above its region.

17 takeaway premises are shown as awaiting inspection and 73 (52%) had a rating date in the last 12 months. With so many 5s, a 4 or below stands out to a customer scrolling through options, so show your rating and fix anything that holds it down. How hygiene ratings work for takeaways.

Postcode districts and delivery zones

Colchester has takeaways in 7 postcode districts, and the three with the most are CO1 (38), CO4 (31), CO2 (28).

78% of Colchester's food premises sit within 3 miles of the middle of the area, and half are within 1 miles, so a kitchen can usually cover its patch with one postcode-based zone; a short collection time is the easiest thing to promise. Chefzi's delivery zones are set by postcode or radius, with a minimum order and fee per zone.

What stands out in Colchester

• CO1 alone holds 27% of the takeaway premises in Colchester (38 of 141), so a kitchen there is competing with a dense cluster for the same customers.
• Colchester has the number 4 most takeaway premises of the 14 council areas in Essex.
• 12% of takeaway premises (17) are still awaiting their first inspection, which usually means recent openings, so new competitors are arriving.
• Hygiene ratings differ by district: 100% of rated takeaways in CO5 hold a 5, against 58% in CO1.
• Colchester has 3.2 times as many takeaway premises as Babergh (44), its nearest neighbour by food-premises centre.

The kitchens behind the names in Colchester

Counting premises whose trading name contains a cuisine word (a rough guide, not a cuisine census), Colchester has 4 words that reach 10: 20 pizza, 16 Indian-style, 16 Chinese-style and more.

Local set-up: Indian restaurant ordering in Colchester.

Counts are premises, takeaway plus restaurant and café, whose registered trading name contains the word. A name without the word is not counted, so treat them as a floor.

Indian or curry edges ahead of the national rate in Colchester: 17 of 676 food premises (2.5%), against 2.2% across the UK (FSA, 13 November 2026). 7 of the 17 are in CO1, a district with 38 registered takeaways of every kind. Of the 13 rated Indian or curry-named premises, 62% hold a 5, against 81.1% of rated takeaways of every cuisine in Colchester. Kebab or doner names are rarer than average: 6 of 676 (0.9%, against 1.7% across the UK). These are name-keyword counts, a floor rather than a census.

Late-night hot food in Colchester: the council's own page

Serving hot food or drink between 11pm and 5am normally needs a late night refreshment licence under the Licensing Act 2003, issued by the local council. We could not open Colchester's licensing page automatically, so ask the council's licensing team for its current process and fees.

The general rules, the 11pm to 5am window and what to ask are in the late night refreshment licence guide. Chefzi lets you set collection and delivery hours separately, so ordering hours can follow whatever your licence conditions say. This is general information, not legal advice.

Colchester and the areas around it

Main places in the Colchester council area include Colchester (about 130,200 people in the 2021 built-up area).

Part of Essex, with Basildon, Braintree, Brentwood, Castle Point, Chelmsford and Epping Forest.

Nearest council areas by the centre of their food premises (distance between centres):

Set-ups for the kitchens here: Pizza, Indian restaurants, Chinese takeaways, Fish and chips, or online ordering for takeaways.

All UK locations

Popular in the East of England

• Chicken shop ordering in Luton
• Kebab shop ordering in Ipswich
• Chicken shop ordering in Central Bedfordshire
• Indian restaurant ordering in Luton
• Kebab shop ordering in Great Yarmouth

All of the East of England

Sources

• Food Standards Agency, Food Hygiene Rating Scheme open data API (api.ratings.food.gov.uk), Open Government Licence v3.0, pulled 13 November 2026. Takeaway/sandwich shop and restaurant/café/canteen business types.
• Office for National Statistics, 2021 Census built-up area populations.
• Council licensing page linked above, opened 13 November 2026.