Set up Restaurant Reservations

Restaurant Reservations takes table reservations for a venue. Diners reserve on its booking page, the team adds reservations and walk-ins by hand, and the book shows each service's parties: who is coming, who has arrived, who is seated where and who is waiting. Each diner's visits are kept. It works in Personal or in a team.

Members with edit access run the book and change the seating plan. Team admins also set up the services and the booking page. A member who can only view reads everything and changes nothing.

Your venue

Opening Restaurant Reservations for the first time makes a venue named after the team, or after you in Personal, in your time zone, with one section, Dining room, and the diner tags VIP, Regular and Allergy. Today then shows Get started: the opening hours first, then the tables.

A venue's business day runs into the small hours, so a late seating on Saturday night belongs to Saturday's book. More than one venue needs Pro or the Team plan; the venue select in the page bar switches between them and remembers your choice.

Services: when you seat diners

Services are the venue's opening hours as the kitchen runs them, such as Lunch and Dinner. Open Services and choose a starter: Restaurant (Lunch 12:00 to 14:30 and Dinner 17:30 to 21:30, Tuesday to Sunday), Café (All day 08:00 to 16:00, every day), Bar (Evening 17:00 to 23:00, every day, every 30 minutes), Fine dining (Dinner 18:00 to 20:30, Wednesday to Saturday), or Your own hours, a service you name whose days and times you set on its page. A starter's services are added beside the ones you have, and everything changes on the service's page afterwards.

A service's page sets, each in place:

• Its days: press a day to turn it on or off.
• First seating and last seating, and how far apart the times diners choose from are.
• Turn times: how long a party keeps its table, by its size.
• Pacing: how many new covers the kitchen takes in the service and in each interval, even when tables are free.
• Sections: where the service seats its parties.
• Online reservations: whether diners can reserve this service on the booking page, the party sizes it takes online, how far ahead and how close to the time a diner can still reserve, and the latest a diner can change or cancel.

Add special day in the page bar closes the venue on a date, runs a service differently that day, or adds a one-off service. A date that already has reservations outside its new hours lists them, so you can move or cancel each one.

Tables

The seating plan is the venue's sections and tables, each room drawn on its map; see Lay out the seating plan and its map. Diners reserving online are given tables offered online, in sections whose Online reservations switch is on.

The booking page

Booking page in the sidebar is where diners reserve. Until it is published, only your team can open it, as a preview that saves nothing: Preview opens it as a diner will see it. Team admins change its details where they are shown:

• Address: /reserve/your-venue. The old address keeps working after a change.
• Name, Description, Street address and Phone: what the page says about the venue. Diners are asked to call the phone number for a party larger than a service takes online.
• Picture: shown at the top of the page and in link previews, chosen from Your images.
• Cancellation rule: the rule diners agree to when they reserve. Magpie's rule is shown until you write your own.

Publish booking page opens the page to everyone. Its full address is then shown with Copy and Open, to share or to link from your website. Unpublish closes it again: a diner who opens the address is told the link no longer works, and the reservations stay as they are.

What diners do

A diner chooses a party size and a date and sees the free times of each service that takes reservations online. A time that is taken shows the nearest free ones; a day with nothing free says so; a party larger than a service takes online is asked to call. Choosing a time holds it for 5 minutes while they enter their name, phone number and email address, an occasion and anything you should know, then Reserve. The reservation is in the book at once.

The reservation has a page of its own, opened with the email address the diner reserved with, where they change the time or cancel within the service's notice.

The book

Today shows the day's reservations by service, with the day's figures: reservations, covers, seated now, waiting and no-shows. Previous day, Next day and the date move through the book. List and Tables are two views of the same day; Tables shows each section's map with who is at each table. The book refreshes itself while it is open.

+ Add reservation takes the date, a time from the day's seating times or another time you type, the party size and the diner's name; a phone number or email address finds a diner the team has seen before. A warning, such as a party larger than the table seats, can be accepted and the reservation booked anyway. + Add walk-in seats a party now at a free table, or puts them on the Waitlist with the wait you quoted them.

On each reservation: Arrived when the party is here; Seat to choose a table, with the free ones that fit offered first; Finish when they leave; and in More, Mark as no-show once its time has passed, Move… to another time, Change table… and Cancel reservation…. Undo reverses a change within 5 minutes. Opening a reservation shows its facts, the team's notes and its history.

Reservations and diners

Reservations lists every reservation across the team's venues, with tabs, a search by name or reservation number, and filters. Each row opens the reservation.

Diners lists everyone who has reserved, with their visits, no-shows and last visit, their tags (VIP, Regular and Allergy, and the ones you add) and a search by name, phone or email. A diner's page has their reservations, a note the team keeps (diners never see it), their tags, Add to Contacts, which keeps them in Contacts with their reservations in the contact's history, and Move to Trash in More, from where they can be restored.

If something here does not match what you see, Contact support.