Running walk-ins and reservations on one floor plan

The door and the book pull in opposite directions. Hold tables for reservations and walk-ins wait while seats sit empty. Seat everyone who walks in and your 8 PM bookings arrive to a full room with nowhere to go.

Most nights the host settles that tension in their head, table by table, with a paper book and a gut feeling. Researchers who study restaurant reservations describe the real cost of balancing walk-ins against promises already made.

One floor plan, one truth. The waitlist and the book share the same tables.

Put the whole room on one plan

TurboResto shows reservations and walk-ins on the same floor plan, with the time attached to each. You see which tables are about to turn, which are booked at 8 PM, and where a walk-in can fit between the two.

It shows the free time before the next booking, so you can seat a walk-in and free the table on time.
It holds only the tables you actually need for reservations, instead of freezing a section just in case.
It moves the door line forward without putting a booked table at risk.

Fill the gaps without the fear

Hosts hold too many tables out of fear. They would rather leave a table empty than give away a reservation's seat. When you see the times, that fear drops. You seat the walk-in in the 90 minutes before the booking, you turn the table, and the guest who reserved still finds a place ready.

More walk-ins seated. No reservation displaced. A host who works the room instead of doing math.

Find the hole before you seat

The timeline grid puts every table on a line with its bookings. Hover a range and the free windows light up. You see at a glance that table 12 is free for the next 90 minutes before its 8:15 booking. Seat the walk-in there and you just turned a table you would have left empty.

If you try to sit a walk-in on a table whose booking is close, TurboResto shows the conflict and offers to seat them after, or you pick the next table that is actually free. It also computes the first time each table will be free and clean, so you can quote a wait without guessing.

See your room handle a rush

Schedule a demo and we will run your floor plan through a real Friday night, walk-ins included.

Sources

Alexandrov and Lariviere (Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University), "Are Reservations Recommended?": the cost of balancing walk-ins against reservation commitments. https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/lariviere/research/Reservations.pdf