Get ready for unexpected lunch and dinner offers to hit your phone: US Supreme Court says restaurants can legally text you

Want fries with that lunch order you’ve yet to place? Get ready to be pinged with food offers whether you want them or not. If you’ve done business with a restaurant before, that’s now okay. Restaurants can legally send you a text message to your mobile phone if your number is in their customer database, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled.

The texts will not violate the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, or TCPA, if your mobile phone number is in a restaurant’s database and the message is for legitimate business reasons.

The Supreme Court last week ruled unanimously that such text messages are legal. Many restaurants use customers’ mobile numbers collected when customers order online. Others collect the cell numbers then notify customers by text when their table is ready, for example. It’s still illegal for a restaurant to send texts randomly or employ robocalls– calls or texts to computer-generated random numbers.