Guide · The phone
Taking restaurant phone bookings without the paper diary
Online booking was supposed to quieten the phone. In most pubs and restaurants it has not: the regulars ring, the older guests ring, anyone with a question rings. And it rings at ten to eight, when the person nearest to it is carrying three plates.
Published
Why the diary by the phone causes the double booking
The paper diary works while it is the only book. The moment guests can also book online, there are two, and they do not talk to each other. Someone takes a four for Saturday at eight in pen; an hour later the website sells the same table to a stranger, because nobody typed the pencilled booking in. The double booking on Saturday is not anyone's carelessness. It is two books.
The fix is not a better diary. It is taking the call in the same place the online bookings land, against the same free tables, so the answer you give on the phone is the answer the website would have given. Then a table promised at 19:30 is gone for everyone the second you save it.
The call, in four questions
- 1
When, and how many?
Ask both before anything else; they decide whether there is a table at all. If eight is full, offer what is really free — 18:45 or 20:30 — rather than “I'll see what I can do”.
- 2
A name and a mobile number
Then read the number back, digit by digit. A wrong number is the booking you cannot reach when the kitchen floods.
- 3
Anything we should know?
This one question catches the birthday, the pram, the wheelchair, the coeliac. Asked the same way on every call, nobody has to remember to ask it.
- 4
Repeat it back, then put the phone down
“Four of you, Saturday at half seven, under Byrne, and one of you is avoiding nuts.” Ten seconds that save a mix-up on the night.
Finding the regular before they finish their name
“It's Mrs O'Neill, we come in most Fridays.” On paper, that is a name and a hope. On the screen, start typing the surname or the number they are calling from and their card comes up while they are still talking: how often they come, when they were last in, and whether they have a habit of not turning up or cancelling late.
That last part matters more on the phone than anywhere. A guest with three no-shows asking for your busiest table on the Saturday before Christmas is a conversation worth having politely now, rather than an empty table at nine.
Write what the kitchen needs, where the kitchen will see it
Anything said on the call goes in the booking's note, in plain words: “bringing a pram”, “wants the quiet corner”, “surprise — do not mention the cake on arrival”.
An allergy deserves more than a note on one booking. Put it on the guest's card, so it shows as an alert on this booking and every one after it, in the pre-service briefing and on the printed day sheet — the subject of our guide to recording allergies at booking.
The Thursday table: book it once
Every pub has them: the quiz team, the two retired teachers, the Friday lunch from the solicitor's office across the road. Writing them into the diary every week is how they get forgotten the one week it matters.
- Book them as a standing booking: every week, or every two to eight weeks, until a date or for a number of times — up to half a year in one go.
- Each week becomes its own booking, checked like any other. If one week has no table — Christmas week, a private hire — you are told which, and the rest still go in.
- When they skip a week, cancel that one. When the quiz moves to Wednesdays, cancel this one and every one after it, and book the new day.
When the phone is the right place for the booking
Some bookings should come by phone. If you cap online parties at six, or turn anything above eight into a request, the larger groups ring — and that is the call where you agree the menu, the time they will leave and who is paying. The phone is not the old way of booking; it is the channel for the bookings that need a conversation.
Phone bookings: short answers
Should we stop answering the phone during service?
Many restaurants send it to voicemail between seven and nine and ring back after. That is fine if the message says when you will call back, and someone does. A call taken badly at ten to eight costs more than one returned at ten.
The caller asks for a table that is booked. Can I squeeze them in?
Offer the nearest time that is really free first. If you decide to make room anyway, do it knowingly: move the other booking on the screen rather than writing a second party onto the same table.
Do phone bookings count in the reports?
Yes, as bookings like any other, and the guest's visits build up on their card whichever way they booked.
The host stand where calls are taken · Moving from a paper diary in a week · All guides