Venue type · Fine dining
Fine dining restaurant bookings, where every table is a large share of the night
Thirty covers, a menu of nine courses, a kitchen that plates each one at a set rhythm. In a room this small, the questions that matter are when your dates open, how the first course is paced, how long a table really lasts, and who is sitting at it.
Card guarantees, deposits and no-show charges are taken through your own Stripe account, once you have connected it. The money is yours, settled after the visit.
How a tasting-menu evening runs
Many chef-led restaurants serve one menu a night, either in a single sitting where every table starts together or in staggered starts that the kitchen can absorb a few tables at a time. A table of two is usually there for two and a half to three hours, a larger table for longer. Most bookings are couples, and a striking number are for an occasion: an anniversary, a proposal, a birthday someone saved up for.
Dates are often opened in one go — a month or two ahead, at a fixed hour — and the popular Saturdays go in the first minutes. A late cancellation in a thirty-cover room is felt in the kitchen's prep, which is why so many British restaurants at this level hold a card and charge for no-shows.
Setting up the room and the night
- 1
Open dates the way you announce them
Dates can open a set number of days ahead at a set time of day — sixty days ahead at ten in the morning, for instance — instead of a window that creeps forward by itself at midnight.
- 2
Pace the first course
A pacing ceiling caps the covers arriving in any rolling window, so the booking page spreads a staggered evening at the rhythm the pass can plate.
- 3
Or seat everyone at once
A single sitting is a service with one start time. Guests choose a date, not a time, and the kitchen fires one menu.
- 4
Give each party its true length
Turn times by party size: three hours for a two, three and a half for a six. Nothing is booked onto a table that will still be at its petits fours.
- 5
Draw the room as it is
The floor plan is to scale, so the window table, the booth and the table by the kitchen door are each themselves — and a request for the window can be honoured or honestly refused.
Knowing the guest
The occasion, before service
When a guest names the occasion as they book, it is on the pre-service briefing: tonight's anniversaries, birthdays, first visits and big tables, with the kitchen's pacing rules and what the last shift left in writing.
The history on the card
Visits, no-shows and late cancellations, counted per guest. When a regular calls, the person on the phone sees them; when someone has cancelled late three times, they see that too.
The phone, answered properly
A phone booking is taken at the host stand against the real free times, with a free-text note, and finds the returning guest by name or number before a duplicate is made.
Dietary requirements, on the card and on the pass. When the guest tells you about the shellfish allergy or the pescatarian partner — on the phone, in an e-mail, at the last visit — it goes on their guest card with any access needs, and stays there for every visit after. An allergy shows as an alert on the booking and in the briefing, and the printed day sheet lists allergies, diets, access needs and occasions beside each table, so the kitchen plans the nine courses with it in front of them. The online booking form has no allergy field, only an optional note a guest may use for one; read it, move the allergy to the card, and treat your confirmation call or e-mail as where you find out for sure.
What this level of restaurant will want first
A card held against the booking. With your Stripe account connected, a booking rule asks for a card guarantee or a deposit on the dates and services you choose. A no-show or a late cancellation is charged by your rule and settled after the visit, and the booking shows what is held.
Reminders. The guest gets a reminder e-mail before the night, with the link to change or cancel the booking; nothing is sent by text message.
Fine dining questions
Can bookings for a whole month open at once?
Yes. Set how many days ahead dates open and at what time of day; each date then becomes bookable at that moment, the same for every guest.
Can a guest move their booking to another night online?
Yes. The link the guest is shown when they book lets them cancel, change the number of people, or move to another night from the times your rules really have free — release dates and pacing included. Inside your late window the page asks them to ring you instead.
Is it legal to charge a no-show fee in the UK?
That is a legal question rather than a software one. Our guide to restaurant no-show fees in the UK sets out what applies, with its sources; Slotora charges a fee only under a rule you have set, through your own Stripe account.
Before your next release day
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