Table reservation

[2] Today, at such venues, observes Joy Smith, author of Kitchen Afloat: Galley Management and Meal Preparation (2002): "It's always smart to inquire about a restaurant's reservation policy.

[1] In recent times, many restaurants have replaced the traditional pencil and notebook with an online reservation system,[3] such as Bookatable, Chope or Resy.

In addition, diners with a late reservation face a higher chance that the restaurant will run out of necessary ingredients for a particularly popular dish.

As clients know that there is a limited capacity of seats, they will always prefer to make a table reservation instead of arriving at the restaurant and facing a long waiting line.

[5] This service represents an important benefit for restaurants, because by guaranteeing customers a seat, they will be able to start operating at an earlier time, and serve food until a later time than average, and thus, serve more parties each day, and consequently, have a higher daily income.

[5] The modality of table reservations helps restaurants to estimate demand more accurately, and therefore, to improve sourcing and staffing and manage costs more efficiently.

Nowadays, the majority of people prefer to go out knowing that they have a reservation, instead of incurring the risk of not getting a table at the desired place.

Restaurants will also be able to track cancellations, and manage walk-in and waitlists in a better way, eliminate overbookings, and create target email and postal mailings with the information from the customer database.

[9] Guests who create reservations but neither cancel nor show up pose a significant financial risk to restaurants, leading to overstaffing and loss of business from potential paying customers.