The Favour

The Favour — terms for guests

Last updated Tuesday 3 November 2026

Prices on this page are in pounds sterling (£). Where a date is given, it is the calendar date in London.

1. Who we are

The Favour is run by Joy in Golf Limited ('the club', 'we', 'us'). Registered office: Unit 2, Leavesden Lodge, 1a Leavesden Road, Watford, England, WD24 5FR. Company number: 09996083. You can reach us by text on [placeholder — the club number] or by email at [email protected].

The restaurant where the table sits is a separate business. It is not part of the club, and these terms do not cover what you order there (see section 6).

2. What you are buying

One seat at a Thursday evening table for six people who have not met, on a dated Thursday, at the restaurant named in your acceptance text. With the seat comes the favour game: before the evening you are posted a card carrying one other guest's favour on the front and the table's six favours on the back, unnamed, including your own. At the table you work out whose favour you hold. Over dessert anyone who can do one of the six says so.

If nobody claims your favour at the table, it stays open in the club's text relay for eight weeks after you sit (section 9).

The club does not provide the food or drink. You order and pay the restaurant for those yourself.

3. Applying, being accepted, and paying

The Favour is application-only. That means:

  • You apply first, with your name, your mobile number, your postal address, what you do, where you are connected to, the languages you speak, and the one favour you need.
  • A person reads every application and places the tables. Not every application is accepted for the Thursday you asked for. If a Thursday is full you are offered the next.
  • You pay nothing until you are accepted. When you are accepted we text you, and the text carries a link to pay. Your seat is yours once payment goes through.
  • Tables for a Thursday are confirmed by the Sunday before, so the cards can be posted on the Monday.

Payment is taken by Stripe, a payment company. The club never sees your full card number. Stripe's own terms apply to the payment itself.

You must be 18 or over to apply. By applying you confirm that you are.

4. The price

  • One Thursday: £39 plus your own bill at the restaurant.
  • The Season: £156 for four Thursdays over twelve weeks. That is four seats at £39 each, no discount. Your seat is held without reapplying, you get first pick of dates, and your favour stays open for the whole Season rather than eight weeks.

There is nothing else to pay the club. The restaurant bills you separately for what you eat and drink, at its own prices; the club has no part in that bill and does not set it.

If we change the price, the change applies to new bookings only. A Season already bought keeps its price for all four seats.

5. Cancelling a seat — please read this before you pay

The seat is for a dated evening. Under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013, the usual 14-day right to cancel a purchase made online does not apply to a service for leisure activities on a specific date. This is such a service. So once you are accepted and have paid, the seat is not refundable if you cancel or do not come.

We tell you this before you pay: it is on the booking page, in the acceptance text and here.

Two things are separate from this and still available to you:

  • The reserve list. If you cannot make your Thursday, reply to your acceptance text and we will offer your seat to the reserve list. If a reserve guest takes it, your £39 is refunded. If nobody takes it, the seat stays yours and there is no refund.
  • The first-Thursday guarantee (section 7), which is about whether you would come back, not about cancelling.
  • If you have paid and the person placing the week's tables cannot seat you that Thursday, your seat rolls to the following Thursday. If you would rather not wait, ask and your £39 is refunded.

If you bought a Season, the same rule applies to each dated seat once you have picked its date.

6. The restaurant

The restaurant is a separate business. It holds the table for the club; everything else — the menu, the service, the bill, the licence to serve alcohol — is the restaurant's. You pay the restaurant directly. Any complaint about the food, the drink or the service is for the restaurant, though we would like to hear about it too.

Alcohol is served under the restaurant's licence. The restaurant may ask for proof of age and may refuse service, as the law requires it to for anyone under 18.

7. The first-Thursday guarantee

The first Thursday is on us if you wouldn't come back.

On the Sunday after your first Thursday, at 18:00, we text you. The text asks whether your favour was sorted and whether you would come back. Reply NO to the second question in that Sunday's text and the £39 is refunded, no reason needed.

How it works:

  • It applies to your first Thursday with the club only. It does not apply to any later seat.
  • Reply NO by the end of the Monday after the Sunday text (23:59, London time). The Sunday text says so.
  • The refund goes back to the card you paid with. A person confirms each refund, and it is processed within two working days; your bank may take a few more days to show it.
  • If your first Thursday was the first seat of a Season, a NO refunds the whole £156.
  • The guarantee is a promise the club makes on top of your rights in law. It does not replace them.
  • The club may withdraw the guarantee for new bookings. If it does, it comes off the booking page first. A booking made while the guarantee was shown keeps it.

8. Conduct

The evening is for adults who want a good Thursday and a reason to talk. We ask for ordinary good manners: turn up, be on time, be straight with the table, and take no for an answer.

The club keeps a number you can text on the night and after it (section 10). Every report is read by a person.

  • A guest reported twice does not sit again. 'Reported' means a report from another guest or from the restaurant that a person at the club has read and recorded. We do not investigate like a court; we take two separate reports as enough.
  • For serious conduct — threats, harassment, violence, any sexual advance that was not welcome, drunkenness that spoils the table, trying to sell to the table, or using the evening to pursue someone romantically — one report is enough and the club may remove you from the table or refuse future seats at once.
  • A seat lost for conduct is not refunded.
  • The club does not vet guests beyond reading the application. Say so to yourself before you come: the people at the table are strangers, placed by a person who has read a short form, and nothing more.

9. The favour, the card and the relay

  • Your favour goes on the card in your own words. If we think a clearer wording would help, we suggest one and you approve it before anything is printed. If your favour reads like a classified — a flat to rent, a job for your cousin, money — we say so and ask for another.
  • Your favour is printed without your name. Your tablemates see it on a card; past guests may see it later as a numbered line with your table number only. Your name and your number never go out.
  • If your favour is not claimed at the table, it goes out on up to three Mondays over eight weeks to past guests who have asked to receive the Monday digest. Anyone who can help replies with the number. You get a one-line description of them and a YES/NO. If you say yes, each of you is asked what to pass on — an email address, or CALL to pass your number — and you each get one text with first names, the favour and only what the other chose to pass on. The club never shares a number; a guest may choose to. Then the club steps back.
  • We do not promise your favour gets sorted. We do not check that anyone who offers can do what they say. What happens after an introduction is between the two of you.
  • A favour nobody claims retires after eight weeks unless you come back. If you bought a Season, it stays open for the whole Season.
  • For the first Thursdays (19 November to 10 December 2026) the relay starts later than usual: the first digest goes out in the week of 14 December 2026, the digest is weekly from January 2027, and the eight weeks for those favours run from 14 December 2026 rather than from the Thursday you sat.
  • Anything you do for another guest you do as a private person. The club is not a party to it, does not arrange payment for it, and is not responsible for it.

10. Texts

The texts your seat needs, then one digest a week at most; STOP ends them.

The texts your seat needs: that you're accepted and how to pay; that your card is in the post; a Wednesday reminder carrying the card's content; a Thursday-morning reminder; the Sunday questions; and, if you're introduced, the introduction and a day-14 check. Everyone who is accepted gets these.

The Monday digest comes only if you ticked the box asking for it. At most one a week. STOP ends the digest; it does not stop the texts a seat you have paid for needs, and opting out of texts doesn't stop you coming back.

All our texts come from the club's number, [placeholder — the club number], and begin 'The Favour:'. You can reply to it.

Full details of what we do with your data are in the privacy notice at thefavour.club/privacy.

11. If the club cancels a Thursday

A Thursday with fewer than six paid guests at the Sunday 21:00 lock is cancelled. The club may also cancel a Thursday if the person who places the tables is ill or the restaurant cannot hold the table. If we cancel, we text everyone booked as soon as we know. Paid guests are refunded within two working days or, if they prefer, carried to the next Thursday with first placement. A Season seat that is cancelled is put back into your Season.

The club is not responsible for the cost of travel or anything else you spent getting ready for a cancelled evening.

12. Our responsibility to you

Nothing in these terms limits our responsibility for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, or for anything the law does not let us limit.

Beyond that, the club's responsibility to you for anything arising from a seat is limited to the fee you paid the club for that seat. The club is not responsible for the restaurant's food, drink or service, for what another guest says or does, or for anything that follows from an introduction.

13. Changes to these terms

We may change these terms. The version that applies to your seat is the one shown when you paid. We date every version at the top.

14. Complaints, law and disputes

If something has gone wrong, text or email us first (section 1); a person will reply.

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales will deal with any dispute. If you live in Scotland or Northern Ireland you may also be able to bring a claim in your local courts. Nothing here takes away rights you have as a consumer under the law where you live.