Booking Pacing Plan for Your Book
A table seated at 19:30 costs the kitchen nothing at 19:30. Its starters plate at 19:49, its mains at 20:17. That is why the pass peaks half an hour after the door does — and why the book takes too many at 19:30. Tell us how many cooks are on and what your room looks like; the tool tells you how many covers you may take per slot.
How it works
- 1
Say what kind of service you run and how many cooks are on
A bar main is assembled; a fine-dining main is finished to order by one pair of hands. Together those two answers set how many plates your line sends per slot — the ceiling nobody ever works out.
- 2
Fill in your room and your service
Seats, how long a table takes, when the first table may sit and when the kitchen stops. The tool needs nothing more than that.
- 3
Read the number per slot
One figure: this many covers your book may take per slot. Under it stands which of the two decided it — your line or your seats — and what a book paced on seats alone would put on the pass.
- 4
Print the sheet and hang it by the phone
One A4 with every slot, the cap, and a line to write down what actually got booked. Whoever picks up the phone has to be able to read that number, not estimate it.
The four clocks of a service
A booking runs on four clocks, and the book is almost always made on the first one. The other three are exactly where the evening comes apart.
The door clock
When the guest sits down. It is the only clock that is visible when the phone rings, and the only one on which a free seat looks like a yes.
The kitchen clock
When the plate is actually made. On a hundred-minute table the main plates forty-five minutes after seating — and it lands together with the starter of the table behind it and the dessert of the table before it.
The room clock
How long the chair stays occupied: the table time plus clearing and resetting. That is what your room can recycle in an evening, and it is usually not the tighter of the two.
The closing clock
When the line stops. Your last seating hangs off it: a table you seat too late has its main plating after the kitchen has already shut.
What a line sends per hour
Deliberately conservative figures, per cook per hour, expressed in mains. The work per cover is the sum of every course its menu serves, with a main counting as one.
| Kind of service | Plates per cook per hour | Usual table time | Work per cover |
|---|---|---|---|
| Casual / café | 26 | 80 min | 2.10 |
| Bistro / brasserie | 20 | 100 min | 2.10 |
| Fine dining | 12 | 130 min | 2.45 |
| Bar / pub | 34 | 60 min | 1.00 |
Five terms
The words on this sheet, in the sense the tool gives them.
- Booking pacing
- The number of covers your book may take per slot, so that the kitchen can actually cook every one of them. Not the same thing as the number of free seats.
- Covers per slot
- The ceiling per fifteen- or thirty-minute block. One number that whoever answers the phone has to know by heart.
- Mains-equivalent
- The line's unit of account. A main counts as one, a starter as 0.6, a dessert as 0.5, an amuse as 0.35 — which is what makes the work of different courses addable.
- Last seating
- The last slot at which you may still seat a table: the kitchen's closing time minus the time until that table's main plates. Almost never the same hour as closing itself.
- Turnaround
- The minutes between two parties at the same table: clearing, resetting and seating again. It counts towards what one chair can carry in an evening.
Frequently asked questions
Is this booking pacing plan free?
Yes, completely free, with no account and nothing to install. You fill it in and print straight from your browser.
Does this tool forecast how busy it will be?
No, and that is deliberate. How busy it will be is a different question with its own tool. This sheet says how many you may take at most, whatever walks in — a ceiling, not a forecast.
Why is the number lower than my number of seats?
Because your seats are rarely the tighter of the two. A guest occupies a chair once, but hands the line three or four plates, each at a different moment. As soon as the tables of three different slots land on the pass together, the line is full while the room is not.
My last seating is earlier than my closing time. Is that right?
Yes. It is your kitchen's closing time minus the time until a main plates. Seat a table later and something has to be cooked after the line has already stopped — and that is exactly the table everyone argues about afterwards.
Can I take more than the sheet says?
Of course, it is your book. The sheet only says what it costs: every cover above the cap lands in a slot where the line is already full, and that bill is paid at the table in waiting time.
Where do I write down what is already booked?
In the column beside it, on screen or with a pen on the printed sheet. The tool counts what is left and says so when a slot is already over its cap.
Is my plan saved?
Yes, on this device, in your own browser. Nothing is uploaded and there is no account.
This is a house plan, not a promise to a guest and not the law. What you owe a booking you cannot seat differs per country and follows your own terms — put that there, not on this sheet.