Name badges for cafes, bars, restaurants and hotels.
High turnover, split shifts and staff in their own good shirts. Hospitality badges have to survive a wet bar top, go on and off in seconds, and be reordered for one new starter without a setup charge.
Design your badgeHospitality is the sector that reorders most often and cares least about paperwork. What follows is what actually matters when you are badging a floor team that changes every few months.
First names, and not much else
A hospitality badge has one job: let a guest use someone's name. First name only, set large, is almost always right. A surname makes staff uncomfortable and adds nothing for the guest.
Roles are worth adding only where a guest needs them. Manager, Duty Manager and Sommelier earn their place because they tell a guest who to ask. Team Member does not.
Set the name at 8pt or larger. A badge is read from across a table in low light, and a name that works on your screen can be unreadable at arm's length in a dim dining room.
Why magnetic is worth the $2.00 here
Hospitality staff often supply their own black shirt. The moment you ask someone to put a pin through a shirt they bought themselves, you have a problem, and it is the sort of small grievance that quietly damages a floor team.
Magnetic fixings add $2.00 per badge and leave no holes. On a team of 15 that is $30 total, which is less than one replacement shirt.
Pin clips still make sense if your team wears issued aprons or tabards over their own clothes, since the badge goes on the apron and never touches anything personal. There is a fuller comparison on our fixings page.
Handling staff turnover without paying twice
Hospitality turnover means ordering one or two badges at a time, and that is where badge suppliers usually get expensive.
Two things protect you:
- Setup is charged once. A reorder where only the name changes never pays setup again, however long it has been since the first order.
- There is no minimum. We will make one badge.
The trap is the price break. A single badge is $12.00 plus $9.00 shipping. Ten badges are $10.00 each with free shipping and no setup. If you know you will hire five people over the next six months, ordering ahead with roles left generic is far cheaper than five separate orders.
Multi-venue groups
If you run several venues under one group, decide early whether badges carry the group brand or the individual venue brand. Both work, but mixing them looks accidental.
A common approach is the group logo with the venue name set small underneath, which keeps one artwork file across every site and means a staff member moving between venues only needs a new badge, not a new design.
For a rollout across sites, talk to us about packing each venue separately so nothing has to be re-sorted when it lands.
Before you order for a venue
Five minutes here saves a reprint later.
- First names only, unless a role genuinely helps the guest
- Name set at 8pt or larger, readable at arm's length in low light
- Magnetic fixing if staff wear their own shirts
- A vector logo, not one pulled off your website
- Order to the next price break if you are hiring soon
- One person named as the proof approver
What venue managers ask us.
Not covered here? Phone us and describe your venue.
Ask usCan I order one badge for a new starter?
Yes. There is no minimum order, and a reorder where only the name changes pays no setup fee. One badge costs $12.00 plus $9.00 shipping, excluding GST.
Will the badge survive behind a bar?
Yes. Every printed badge includes a clear resin dome as standard, which is what makes it wipe clean and resist scratching. It is included free rather than sold as an upgrade.
Should hospitality badges show surnames?
We would advise against it. First name only is the norm in hospitality, it is what guests actually use, and it avoids a genuine safety concern for front-of-house staff.
Can each venue in our group have different colours?
Yes, and at no extra cost. Every badge is printed individually, so colours, names and roles can all vary within a single order.
How quickly can we get badges for a new opening?
A proof within one working day, then 5 to 7 working days from your approval, plus courier time. For an opening date, order about two weeks ahead. See our delivery and turnaround page.
Badging a venue?
Price it up in a couple of minutes, or talk to someone who has done a few hundred of these.