📅Orders & Menu5 min read

Table Reservations

Enable online table booking for your restaurant — with auto-confirm or manual approval, capacity settings, and full reservation management.

Enabling Reservations

Go to Dashboard → Setup → Reservations section.

Toggle Reservations Enabled to on. This adds a "Reserve a Table" section to your public ordering page so customers can book directly.

After enabling, configure the settings below before saving.

Auto-Confirm vs Manual Review

Auto-Confirm (recommended for most restaurants):

When turned on, new reservations are immediately confirmed and the customer receives an email confirmation. This is the smoothest experience for customers and reduces back-and-forth.

Use auto-confirm if you are confident your capacity settings are accurate and you rarely need to turn away bookings.

Manual Review:

When off, new reservations arrive with "Pending" status. You review each one in Dashboard → Reservations and manually confirm or decline. Customers wait for your response.

Use manual review if you have complex seating logistics, private dining rooms, or if you want control over every booking.

Capacity Settings

Capacity per time slot (people): The maximum number of guests you can seat at the same time across all bookings. For example, if set to 40, no more than 40 people can be booked in any single time slot.

Max party size: The largest group a customer can book online. A customer trying to book for more than this number will be told to call you directly.

Advance booking (days): How far ahead customers can make a reservation. 30 days is typical. Set lower if you prefer shorter-term bookings.

Minimum notice (hours): The shortest time before a reservation slot that a customer can book. Setting this to 2 means customers cannot book a slot that starts within the next 2 hours. This prevents last-minute bookings your kitchen cannot prepare for.

Managing Reservations

Go to Dashboard → Reservations to see all bookings.

Each reservation shows: customer name, phone, email, party size, date, time, and status.

Reservation statuses:

  • Pending — awaiting your confirmation (only applies when auto-confirm is off)
  • Confirmed — reservation is approved
  • Declined — you declined the booking request
  • Cancelled — the customer cancelled or you cancelled on their behalf
  • Completed — the party showed up and was seated
  • No-Show — the party did not arrive

Mark no-shows accurately — this data feeds your reservation analytics so you can identify patterns (e.g., no-shows are highest on Fridays at 7pm).

Reservation Analytics

Go to Dashboard → Analytics to see reservation insights, including:

  • Overall no-show rate
  • No-show breakdown by day of week
  • No-show breakdown by time slot
  • No-show breakdown by party size
  • Repeat no-show customers

This data helps you make smarter decisions — for example, requiring a credit card hold for large groups if you see high no-show rates for parties of 6+.

Was this article helpful?

If you need more help, email support@simplidone.com

← All articles