The timing argument is settled and we have made it elsewhere: the moment matters more than the wording. This piece is about the wording anyway, because "ask at the right time" is not something a nineteen-year-old on their fourth shift can act on. They need a sentence.
Six of them, because the same sentence does not work from six different positions.
The server, at the point of paying
"If you've got a minute later, a Google review really does help us — no pressure at all."
Short, no clipboard, no follow-up. The two things doing the work are later and no pressure: the guest is not being asked to perform anything now, which is the main reason these asks feel awkward for both parties.
Delete "if you enjoyed it". More on that below.
The server, when the guest has already praised something
"That's really good to hear — would you mind putting that in a Google review? That exact thing is what people want to know."
This is the highest-converting ask available and it costs nothing, because the guest has already composed the review out loud. All you are doing is asking them to write down what they just said. The specificity is a bonus: reviews prompted this way name dishes and staff rather than saying "lovely, will return".
The condition is that the guest praised something unprompted. Fishing for it first — "how was everything?" then asking — converts far worse and feels like a transaction.
The host or manager, on the way out
"Thanks for coming in — hope we see you again. If you leave reviews, we'd appreciate one."
Works because it is at the door, where the guest is already in a polite exchange, and because "if you leave reviews" acknowledges that most people do not. It is a lower-pressure construction than assuming they will.
The manager, after fixing something
"Sorry again about the wait. Glad we sorted it — and if you're happy with how we handled it, saying so publicly helps us more than you'd think."
Counter-intuitive and effective. A guest whose problem was resolved well is frequently more motivated than one whose evening was simply fine, and the review you get is the most valuable kind — a public account of something going wrong and being dealt with, which answers the question every reader of your profile actually has.
Only use it after a genuine recovery. After a partial one it reads as pressure to be quiet.
The takeaway or counter interaction
"Receipt's got a link on it if you fancy leaving a review."
No conversation available, so all the work has to be done by the link. Which means the link has to be short, direct, and land on the review box rather than a profile page — the mechanics are their own audit and this ask fails almost entirely on them rather than on the words.
The regular
"You've been coming in for years and we've never asked — would you write us a review?"
Direct, because with a regular the indirect version is odd. Regulars are the most under-asked group in most venues, and they write the reviews that read as most credible, because a review mentioning three years of visits is worth several enthusiastic first-timers.
The sentence to delete from all of them
"If you enjoyed it."
It is in almost every script, it sounds like ordinary politeness, and it is the one construction that creates a real problem. Asking only the happy guests to review you is review gating, it is against the terms of the major platforms, and it is exactly the phrasing that demonstrates intent if anyone ever looks. The policy piece goes into what does and does not cross the line.
Also delete anything that mentions five stars, anything offering a discount, a free drink or entry to a draw, and anything of the form "we're trying to hit 200 reviews". The last one sounds harmless and turns the guest's honest opinion into a favour they are doing you, which changes what they write.
Making the words survive
Print them, one line per role, and put them where each role stands — the servers' station, the host desk, the pass. Not in a handbook. A script that requires remembering a training session is a script that lasts about nine days, which is the durability problem and the real reason most review-asking programmes quietly stop.
Then pick one. Not six. A venue where every server uses the payment-moment ask consistently will out-perform one where six scripts exist and nobody is sure which is theirs.