Knowing the exact availability for your dining areas at each time is crucial for running a successful dining operation.
The availability at each time is dependent on:
- the dining area total capacity
- reservations and walk-in entries
- the capacity of the dining tables
- the combined table setup
- how dining tables have been allocated.
Dining Area Capacity is the sum of the seating capacity of available dining tables. Maximum capacity is not taken into consideration.
Dining Area Availability is the dining area capacity minus the number of seated and not seated guests (reservations and walk-ins) at each interval.
A dining table or combined table is available if it is free and with enough capacity for the exact dining duration that the reservation is for. It must have minimum capacity less than or equal to requested number of guests and maximum capacity greater than or equal to the requested number of guests.
Checking dining area availability on reserving
When you try to create a walk-in entry or reservation, the program always checks the dining area availability at the time of reservation.
There is no availability for an interval, if the number of guests you are trying to create a walk-in entry or reservation for is greater than the dining area availability at this time.
Checking for available dining tables on reserving
When you try to create a walk-in entry or reservation, the program checks for available dining tables only if automatic allocation is set for the dining area.
Automatic Allocation on Reservation
For the desired dining area, the Automatic. Alloc. on Reserv. field in the Dining Area Card controls automatic allocation:
- (Always Allocate- the program checks for an available dining table or a combined table. If there is no dining table available, the reservation cannot be confirmed. If waiting list is allowed for the period, the program suggests putting the reservation on waiting list.
- Allocate if Possible - the program checks for an available dining table or a combined table. If no available dining tables are found to allocate, the program notifies you that automatic allocation was not successful but still creates the entry or reservation.
No dining area availability but dining tables are available
The situation can arise where there is no availability in the dining area, but there are still dining tables available. If enough dining tables are allocated to their maximum capacity and their maximum capacity is greater than their normal seat capacity, the dining area capacity can be reached with one or more dining tables still available.