Keep a waitlist when you're full

When you're full and someone walks in, you either turn them away or you write their name on a scrap of paper. The waitlist is that piece of paper, on the screen everyone behind the bar can see.

Find it under Bookings → Waitlist.

Add someone at the door

1. Choose Add walk-up.
2. Put in their name and how many people.
3. Tick any access needs — a high chair, step-free access, a wheelchair space. Tick them here rather than typing them in the note: a ticked need follows the party onto their booking when you seat them, and warns you if the table you give them is marked as unsuitable. A note does neither.
4. Record an allergy or dietary need if the party has one. Choose No allergies if you ask and they tell you they have none.
5. Add a phone number, and a note for anything else that matters — a table by the window, a birthday. Whether the phone number is asked for at all is your choice — see What you ask for at the door.
6. Choose Add to queue.

You can tick or untick an access need later from the party's row, right up until you seat them.

"No allergies" is an answer. Blank is not. Leaving the question alone means nobody asked. Choosing No allergies means you asked and the guest told you they have none. Your kitchen can tell those two apart, so say it when you have asked.

They go to the bottom of the list. Their place is worked out from the time they joined, so it's always right — you never have to renumber anything, and it can't go wrong when two of you are adding people at once. The one exception is a party you deliberately move up; see Choosing who goes next.

If you have more than one venue

Each venue keeps its own queue. At the top of the page you pick which venue you're looking at, and you then see only the people waiting at that door, numbered from one.

Anyone you add goes on the queue for the venue you have picked. The till at that venue shows the same list, in the same order, so the door and the screen behind the bar always agree.

If you run one venue, there's nothing to pick and nothing changes.

What you ask for at the door

You decide whether a host has to take a mobile number. Choose Settings at the top of the waitlist page.

• Required — a host can't add anyone without a mobile. Pick this if you text people when their table is ready.
• Optional — the box is there and a host can skip it. This is how the waitlist works unless you change it, so if you've never opened this screen, this is what you have.
• Do not ask — the box isn't shown at all, and no number is kept even if one comes from a till.

Whatever you pick applies to your tills as well as this page, so a host at the door and a host at the bar are asked for the same thing.

Working the queue

Each party shows:

• Elapsed — how long they've actually been waiting.
• Quote — how long we think they'll wait, set from the party's size when they join. It's the same number the till shows, because both screens work it out the same way. It doesn't move as the queue moves.
• Remaining — how much of that quote is left. When you go past it, this turns red and says how far over you are.

Remaining is the one to watch. Forty minutes is fine if you told someone an hour, and it's a problem if you told them ten. This tells you which is which.

Use the party size buttons (1–2, 3–4, and so on) to see only the parties that fit. When a two-top comes free, tap 1–2 and you're looking at exactly the people who can have it.

Calling and seating

• Mark as called records that you've spoken to the party. You make the call — across the room, or on your own phone. Nothing is sent from this screen. They keep their place in the queue, and everyone behind the bar can see they've been told.
• Seat next moves one party to the front, for when the table that's just come free suits them and not the party ahead. See Choosing who goes next.
• Seat puts them on a table. It opens a short list of the tables that are free now and seat the party, smallest first — tap one to seat them there. Under them, greyed, are the tables that seat the party but are busy now — a booking whose time covers now, or a bill open on the table — each saying when it frees up (Busy until 21:15) or Open bill on it. Tap a busy one and you're asked T5 is busy until 21:15. Seat anyway?; say yes and they're seated there. If someone has sat down at the table you chose by the time you press it, you're told — and they're still seated. Or choose Best free table and we pick for you, as Seat always did. That pick is made by your booking setup: if none is switched on, or no table is free, the party is seated without a table and you're told so — give them one in today's diary. Either way it creates a normal walk-up booking, so the party appears in today's diary straight away and you don't write them down twice. If the table doesn't suit an access need you've ticked, you're told so right there — you can still seat them, and you can move them if you're able. An allergy you recorded at the door goes with them: it shows on the booking and on that guest's own record, the same as one taken over the phone.
• Remove takes them off the list when they've given up and gone elsewhere.

Choosing who goes next

A two-top comes free. The party at the front is six, and they can't have it — but the couple behind them can. Choose Seat next on that couple and they move to the top of the list, on every screen at once.

Choose Un-next to put them back where they were. Nothing else moves, and nobody loses their place: everyone else stays in the order they joined.

If two of you pick different parties, the most recent choice is the one that counts — so you can change your mind, or overrule the other end of the bar, just by choosing again. There's never a clash to sort out.

The three lists

• Active — everyone still waiting.
• Seated — the parties you got in tonight, and how long each waited.
• Removed — the ones who gave up, kept separate from parties still on the list at closing time.

Those two are deliberately not lumped together. A night with a lot of people giving up means your quotes are too optimistic and you're losing custom. A night where the list simply ends at closing time is just closing time.

Anyone still on the list at the end of the day is moved to Removed overnight, marked as the queue closing. You don't have to clear the list yourself, and nobody is sent a message when this happens.

What the numbers at the top mean

Waiting and Called are happening now. Seated today is how many you got in off the list — the trade you'd otherwise have turned away. Gave up is the trade you lost. Median wait is the middle wait for everyone you seated, so one very long wait doesn't skew it.

What guests see

Nothing yet — the waitlist is your screen at the moment. When guests can join it themselves, they'll see their place in the queue and the sizes of the parties in front of them, but never a wait time in minutes. A time given to someone standing in your bar is a promise, and it's worse to break one than never to make it. The quote stays on your side of the bar.

Related

• Add a booking by hand
• The parties list
• Bookings — start here