Frequently Asked Questions

A private restaurant meal journal that answers "what did I have here last time, and did I like it?" the moment you walk in.

No. Nothing you write is published anywhere. Table Encore is a journal for you — your dishes, your ratings, your notes, stored on your phone. There is no feed, no followers, and no public profile.

Satisfaction asks "was this a good dish?" and enjoyment asks "did I love eating it?" They diverge more often than you'd think — a flawless but forgettable entrée, or a greasy dive-bar plate you'd drive an hour for. Keeping both makes your next order smarter.

Yes, entirely. Logging, matching, browsing — even menu & receipt scanning — all run on your device, and a GPS fix doesn't need a data connection either. Only two features ever touch the network, and both are optional: Premium backup, which uploads to your own iCloud or Google Drive and only when you ask it to, and Premium's "Find restaurants near me", which needs a connection to list nearby places — without one, you just type the name.

When you tap Log a meal, the app takes one location fix and checks it against the places you've saved. One saved place nearby gets that Yes/No card; several get a short list, nearest first. Matching is by each place's pin — the spot where you confirmed being there — never by name, so two branches of a chain stay separate. Details in the User Guide.

A switch at the top of the log-meal screen for logging a meal after the fact — last night's dinner, from the couch. The app skips location entirely and saves the place without a pin. It gets its pin the first time you confirm being there, and until then it won't be auto-matched.

A Premium feature for logging a place you haven't saved yet: instead of typing the name, pick it from a list of the restaurants around you, nearest first. The list comes from Apple Maps on iPhone or Google Maps on Android, so it's opt-in — the app asks before sending your location the first time, and the switch stays in About. "Not listed" always falls back to typing. See the User Guide.

In a local database on your device. There are no accounts, and Code Cowboys never receives, sees, or stores anything you record — we run no servers. If you use Premium Backup & sync, the backup goes to a hidden app folder in your own cloud — iCloud on iPhone, Google Drive on Android — straight from your phone. See the Privacy Policy for the full picture.

To match where you're standing against restaurants you have saved, and to suggest a city name when you log a new place — both on your device. If you subscribe to Premium and turn on "Find restaurants near me", your location is also sent to Apple Maps (iPhone) or Google Maps (Android) to list nearby restaurants when you log a new place; that stays off until you say yes. It's a while-in-use permission — the app never reads location in the background — and no location history is kept. You can decline it and pick restaurants manually.

No ads, no analytics, no tracking SDKs, no crash reporters. The app contains no third-party data services of any kind.

Free: up to 5 saved restaurants, with photos, sharing, and export all included — and the app shows you exactly where you stand ("2 of 5 free restaurants used"). Two optional purchases: a one-time Unlimited unlock ($6.99) removes the restaurant limit forever, and a Premium subscription ($12.99/year) adds menu & receipt scanning, "Find restaurants near me" and cloud Backup & sync — and includes Unlimited. Payment is handled by Google Play or the App Store.

Four things: menu & receipt scanning (scan a menu once and that restaurant's dishes autocomplete from then on; scan a bill and your dishes prefill with names and prices), Find restaurants near me (pick a new place from a list of what's around you instead of typing it), Backup & sync to your own iCloud or Google Drive, and Unlimited restaurants — Premium includes everything the one-time unlock does, so you never need both. The Unlimited unlock never converts into a subscription, and the core journal — logging, ratings, photos, sharing, export — stays free.

Nothing. Existing data is never gated — you can keep viewing, editing, and logging visits at all your saved places for free, forever. Only adding a sixth restaurant asks for the unlock, and the in-app counter means it never sneaks up on you.

Purchases are tied to your Google Play or Apple account, not your device. Reinstall the app and the unlock is restored through the store. If it doesn't appear, see Help.

Three ways. Premium Backup & sync backs everything up — photos included — to a private app folder in your own cloud: iCloud on iPhone, Google Drive on Android. The iPhone app can use Google Drive too, which is how a journal moves between Android and iPhone. Export data (free, in About) shares a JSON dump of your journal wherever you like. And your device's built-in backup (Google Backup on Android, iCloud on iPhone) can include app data according to your settings. Because there's no cloud on our end, deleting the app without one of these leaves us with no copy to restore.

Yes — Table Encore for iPhone is on the App Store. It's the same app as Android, built from one codebase.

Android: install it from Google Play. iPhone: install it from the App Store.

Yes. Every dish can carry a photo — camera or gallery — shown as a thumbnail on the dish card with a full-screen pinch-to-zoom view. Photos are stored on your device, attached when you share a visit, and included in Premium backups. Premium subscribers can also scan the menu or the receipt to prefill dishes and prices. See the User Guide.

Yes — open any visit and tap the share icon. It sends a text summary (dishes grouped per diner, with star ratings) plus any dish photos through the normal system share sheet. Nothing is ever published; you choose exactly who gets it, each time.