Restaurant Management Tips:
Sorry, That Seat is Taken
It is time to stop giving away one of your most precious resources - a seat in your restaurant - to any party that walks in. Your seating arrangement cannot be changed very easily. Of course, you can push a deuce and a four-top together to
make a six-top, but a big booth for six just can’t be changed. There is a lot of money hidden in the way you accept reservations, assign seats, and treat walk-ins.
Of course, this discussion applies primarily to the times when your restaurant is full, or nearly so. For some real detailed information on this subject, please refer to an article I wrote for the Cornell Hotel And Restaurant Administration
Quarterly, titled Making More Money In Your Restaurant
. The article is in the June 1999 issue. For right now, though, let's keep it simple.
Let's look at two examples of using seat assignment to uncover some hidden money. It's Friday night in a mythical restaurant, Quain's, and the joint is jumping! A party of six wants a reservation that will require you to put a two-top and a
four-top together. You must decide whether to accommodate them, or hold those two tables open in hopes that a four and a deuce will want them. Luckily, you have kept a record of all the reservation requests and walk-in business that you normally get on a Friday. (I suggest you START keeping this
information if you do not have it.) Also, you have kept records on the average dining time and average check for different party sizes. Using this information, you make the following decision:
 You turn down the reservation, (or try to steer them into a "down time"), because your records show that a party of six takes about one hour and a half to eat, while a deuce and a four only take about an hour each. Also, the average
check (or contribution margin if you use it) is about 10% less per person for the larger party. You can make more money if you turn the smaller tables.
In the second situation, you have an open booth for up to six people. It is the middle of the Friday dinner rush. You do not take reservations, and a party of four is next in line for a table. You know, from your records, that you are very
likely to get a party of six as a walk-in. Your decision is:
Save the booth for a larger party and let the party of four wait. You decide not to give the booth away when you are pretty certain that a larger group will walk in at any minute. (Obviously, you have to handle this situation discreetly.
However, you want to uncover that money don’t you?!)
You will notice that in both of these cases, you are taking a chance. You may lose a "sure thing" in the hopes of maximizing your profit. But, with some attention to record keeping, you can build up a base of information that will
let you make better and better decisions. Even if you do not change your seating policy, the information you gather about dining time, average check and party size will lead you to other sources of hidden income.
The objective is to maximize the use of your resources. So, if you have a 100-seat restaurant, you want to have 100, high-profit, quick-turning customers in those chairs during your busiest times. This will give you the greatest return on
your investment.
For example, if your busiest time is between 7 and 8 p.m., you certainly want your restaurant to be filled to capacity at those times. The trick is trying to get enough fast turning tables filled as close to 7 as possible. This may enable you
to take another seating BEFORE the crowd begins to disperse. Get that creative team to work on this right away!
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