How Reservations Work

A guest books a table from their phone, and the booking shows up on your dashboard a second later. No phone tag, no double-booked tables, no reservation book that only one person can read. This article covers the day-to-day: where bookings land and how you move each one through service.

How Guests Book

When reservations are switched on, your website gets a Book a Table option. A guest picks a date, time, and party size, fills in their details, and submits — that’s it. Depending on your settings, the booking is either confirmed instantly or held as a request for you to approve. (Setting all that up lives in Configuring Reservation Settings.)

Your Reservations Board

Open Operations → Reservations. The board shows your bookings newest day first, grouped by date, with Today always at the top so you start the shift knowing exactly who’s coming.

The Reservations board: a Reservations / Settings tab bar, a live-status banner with a booking count, and bookings grouped under Today and Tomorrow — each row showing the time, guest name, a status badge, party size, booking reference, phone, and a status dropdown. — The board groups bookings by day, Today first, and updates live as new ones arrive.

The banner shows whether the board is Live and listening; new bookings also fire a notification. Use the date picker to jump to Today, Tomorrow, a specific date, or the Upcoming view that rolls every future booking into one list. Read it as a list or a grid of cards.

Reading a Booking

Each row tells you everything you need at a glance:

A single reservation row: the time and duration on the left, then the guest name with a Confirmed status badge, party size, booking reference, phone number, and chips for the occasion (Birthday) and seating preference, with a status dropdown on the right. — One booking — time, guest, party size, reference, and any extras they added.

Alongside the time and party size you’ll see the booking reference (the guest’s short code), their phone number, and any extras they chose when booking — an occasion like a birthday or anniversary, a seating preference, or a special request written out in their own words. If you take deposits, a payment badge shows whether the card hold is awaiting, placed, or captured.

Moving a Booking Along

The dropdown on each booking is how you keep the board honest through the night. The statuses are:

Requires Action — a request waiting for your approval (this is what a pending booking shows as).
Confirmed — you’re expecting them.
Seated — they’ve arrived and been sat.
Completed — they’ve dined and left.
No-show — they never turned up.
Cancelled — the booking was called off.

Open the dropdown and pick the next status. It only offers the moves that make sense from where the booking is now, so you can’t accidentally jump a guest from Completed back to Requires Action. The guest sees confirmation updates on their side, so keeping the board current keeps everyone in the loop.

Tip: Mark guests Seated as they arrive and No-show when they’re clearly not coming. A board that reflects reality is what makes your no-show rate — and your busiest nights — something you can actually measure.

Why It Beats a Paper Book

Everyone sees the same thing. The board updates live across every device, so the host stand and the manager’s phone never disagree.
Nothing gets lost. Each booking carries a reference, a timestamp, and the guest’s contact details — no more squinting at a scribbled name.
The guest does the typing. Names, party sizes, and special requests come straight from the person who knows them, not relayed through a noisy phone line.

Run the board well and reservations stop being a chore you manage and start being a head-count you can plan a whole shift around.