Managing reservations and restaurant floor plans

The process of generating revenue starts before the customer enters your door. This process involves setting your premises (floor plans and reservation strategies) for success.

Who is in charge of what?

Should GM, receptionists or reservation/revenue managers be in charge of controlling the books? If not? Who can do it?

It is a tricky question that can lead to heated debates.

In other sectors, a hotel's general manager would not be the only one deciding on pricing, or a flight hostess would not close seats on the plane because they don't have staff.

Restaurant operators seem to have the most control of what is happening with reservations and changes in the floor plans.

As the primary focus of operators is to deliver a great experience and ensure the restaurant runs smoothly and efficiently, being on top of reservations and systems might become a neglected task. Consequently, revenue can be missed daily.

Is it time to move away from it?

In some cases, yes.

A small independent restaurant might not need someone else looking at the market data and how the reservations come all the time. They should understand the audience better and have more flexibility to make changes faster. 

However, when it comes to bigger groups, it is crucial to consider that to master your business mix, it is vital to look at data instead of only relying on experience or gut feelings. It is easy to lose track of reality and make decisions that might not help the business and cost money when there is no data to back this up. We understand data can be daunting, and it might not be organised or tell you much at first. But it is worth spending time and resources helping your restaurant set the right floor plan and the reservation strategy accordingly. 

 For example, restaurants might firmly believe that asking for card details to secure a table is helping more than overbooking the restaurant. In this case, it is essential to test how much demand you are turning away because they do not want to give card details vs how many people intend to cancel but are showing up to avoid a no-show fee.

Restaurants do not need complicated data models or fancy tools now. Only people willing to learn about their business from a different perspective using the available tools.

Running data to display how often tables are sold with total capacity is the best way to understand if your floor plan configuration matches the demand. You could build different floor plans in your reservation system to accommodate various events or DOW.

Another important piece of factual information is what mix of party sizes comes to your restaurant and at what time. By knowing this, we can also adjust our floor plan configuration.

Changes in the menu pricing or the restaurant offers should also involve a more profound understanding of the competition so we do not compromise the restaurant's performance.  Restaurant operators will not have time to complete all these tasks while ensuring that everything else works well. 

Who can be in charge of your books?

The reservation manager is a good candidate whose responsibilities can expand to: optimise the books, work on channel management and mediate with the restaurant when restrictions are needed. Hiring a yield manager for a group can also benefit the revenue performance of the restaurants. 

To conclude, paying equal attention to how revenue is generated at your restaurant than managing your costs is a turning point for your business.

Author: Carmen Mallo