Feature · Briefing
The line-up before your restaurant opens, already written
At 17:45 the team gathers by the pass. Someone reads out what matters tonight. In most places that someone spent twenty minutes with the diary first; here the briefing reads itself off the bookings.
The briefing is on the host stand's screen. It changes as bookings change, until the moment you read it.
What it puts in front of the team
The big tables
Tonight's large parties, with their times and their tables, so the section that gets the fourteen at 19:30 knows before the fourteen does.
First visits
Guests who have never been before. They get the welcome a regular does not need, and nobody greets them with “nice to see you again”.
What they are celebrating
The occasions guests named when they booked — a birthday, an anniversary — so the candle is ready and nobody has to ask twice.
The kitchen and the last shift, on the same screen
- 1
Tonight's pacing
The kitchen's ceiling for the evening — how many covers it takes per window — is shown beside the bookings it limits, so the floor knows why 20:00 looks thinner than the room.
- 2
The handover note
Lunch writes what dinner needs to know: the dishwasher is slow, table 7 wobbles, a guest left a scarf. The note is there when the next shift opens the briefing.
- 3
Then service
Close the briefing and the same screen is the host stand. The party of fourteen is already on its table.
The allergies, before service starts
When someone on your team has written an allergy on a guest's card, that guest is named in tonight's briefing and flagged on their booking, so the coeliac at table 8 is news at 17:45, not at 20:30. The online form has no allergy field, only an optional note, and a note does not raise the alert: the card knows what your staff have put on it, so read the notes, move an allergy across, and keep asking at the table. For the kitchen, print the day sheet: the same evening on paper, with allergies, diets and access needs beside each booking. The briefing is about tonight's guests; the menu and the specials stay with the kitchen.
Questions about the briefing
Who writes the handover note?
Whoever closes the shift, at the host stand. It stays with the shift it was written for and is shown to the next one.
Where do the birthdays come from?
From the booking itself: when guests book on your online booking page they can choose an occasion, and the briefing lists it against their table.
Does it change if a booking comes in at 17:40?
Yes. The briefing is read off the live bookings, so a late booking for eight appears among the large parties as soon as it is made.
Five minutes before doors, every night
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