Online ordering system for Dorset takeaways and restaurants

Chefzi is an online ordering system for takeaways and restaurants in Dorset: 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 314 takeaway and sandwich shop premises and 948 restaurant and café premises in Dorset (pulled 13 November 2026).

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What the food register shows for Dorset

Of the 5,190 food businesses registered in Dorset, 314 are takeaway or sandwich shop premises and 948 are restaurants, cafés or canteens (Food Standards Agency register). For takeaway premises, Dorset ranks 5th of the 27 councils the FSA lists in the South West.

Restaurants and cafés outnumber takeaways by more than two to one (948 against 314), so sit-down kitchens that also do collection are a big part of the market.

Per head of population that is 8.0 takeaway premises for every 10,000 residents (391,036 people in the ONS mid-2025 estimate), close to the UK figure of 9.1 and 6.9 in the South West. Premises also serve commuters and visitors, so busy centres run higher.

Hygiene results for takeaways

On hygiene, 91.4% of the 291 rated takeaway premises in Dorset hold a 5 and 0.3% sit at 0 to 2; the England average for a 5 is 62% (+29.4 points). In the South West as a whole, 73.3% of rated takeaways hold a 5, so Dorset is above its region.

12 takeaway premises are shown as awaiting inspection and 120 (38%) 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.

Cuisines on the Dorset register

As a rough guide to the mix (trading names only, not a cuisine census), 5 cuisine words reach 10 premises in Dorset: 40 pizza, 39 fish and chip, 29 kebab and more.

Local set-ups: Kebab shop ordering in Dorset, Indian restaurant ordering in Dorset, Pizza shop ordering in Dorset.

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.

Among trading names on the 13 November 2026 FSA pull, kebab or doner is the one that runs slightly above the UK rate in Dorset: 29 premises, 2.3% against 1.7%. 7 of the 29 are in DT4, a district with 63 registered takeaways of every kind. Of the 29 rated kebab or doner-named premises, 93% hold a 5, against 91.4% of rated takeaways of every cuisine in Dorset. Chicken or peri-peri names are rarer than average: 5 of 1,262 (0.4%, against 1.8% across the UK). These are name-keyword counts, a floor rather than a census.

Local patterns in Dorset

• This is one of the bigger markets, with 1,262 takeaway, restaurant and café premises, so a kitchen needs a page and a brand customers recognise to be found among them.
• No postcode district dominates: the busiest, DT4, has only 20% of Dorset's takeaways, and 22 districts have at least one. Zones drawn tight around each shop beat a council-wide radius.
• Dorset and Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (24 miles apart) are close in size: 314 and 335 takeaway premises.

Where the takeaways are, and what that means for delivery zones

By postcode district, DT4 has the most takeaway premises in Dorset (63), followed by DT1 (25) and DT6 (22).

Dorset is spread out: only 11% of premises are within 3 miles of the middle of the area, 39% within 10 and the furthest tenth are over 23.1 miles away. Rural and town-by-town delivery needs separate zones per town, and collection with a time slot often beats long delivery runs. Chefzi's delivery zones are set by postcode or radius, with a minimum order and fee per zone.

Late-night hot food in Dorset: 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 Dorset'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.

Dorset and the areas around it

Main places in the Dorset council area include Weymouth (about 55,500 people in the 2021 built-up area).

Part of Dorset, with Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole.

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

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

All UK locations

Popular in the South West

• Pizza shop ordering in Bournemouth
• Kebab shop ordering in Somerset
• Chicken shop ordering in Bournemouth
• Kebab shop ordering in Bristol
• Indian restaurant ordering in Bristol

All of the South West

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.