Christmas pre-orders collected without chasing

It is the Thursday before the office party, and the manager has sent the same email three times. Of the twenty-two guests in the booking, fourteen have chosen their dishes, five have changed their minds since and three have never replied. The organiser is on holiday until the day of the party. On the night, the server takes the missing orders at the table, the kitchen sends four salmon it did not prepare for, two guests' allergies are discovered over the starters and the party's mains arrive in three waves.

Christmas pre-orders are meant to prevent exactly that night. When every guest in a group has chosen their dishes, and told the venue about their allergies, well before the party, the kitchen prepares the right food, the floor serves the right plate to the right guest and the party feels effortless. The difficulty is not the idea; it is collecting the choices without spending December chasing them.

This guide covers how to collect pre-orders that arrive on time: the form, the deadline, the organiser's role, the reminders, changes and late replies, allergies, and what the kitchen and the floor do with the choices once they are in. Every venue and figure in it is an example.

A group of twenty ordering from the Christmas menu on the night takes a long time to order, asks the same questions twenty times and sends the kitchen an unpredictable mix of dishes all at once. A Christmas dinner for twenty is a banquet, and banquets are planned. On a busy December night with several groups, that slows every table in the room.

With pre-orders, the kitchen knows days in advance how many of each dish every group needs. It prepares the right quantities, plans the allergy-free versions and sends each course together. The floor team knows who ordered what before the guests sit down. A party that pre-ordered is quicker to serve, easier to cook for and far less likely to go wrong.

Pre-orders work best with a short group set menu: a few choices at each course, a vegetarian option and a clear price per guest. A long menu makes the form long, slows the guests' decisions and makes the kitchen's planning harder.

Design the menu with the pre-order in mind. Each dish should have a short, clear name that guests can choose from and that the kitchen recognises on the sheet. Our guide to a Christmas menu the kitchen can repeat nightly covers how to design the menu itself.

The pre-order form should take a guest less than a minute. For each guest, it needs their name, their choice at each course and any allergies or dietary needs. Nothing else is needed, and anything else makes the form less likely to come back.

Make the choices impossible to misread: one line per guest, one column per course and the dish names exactly as they appear on the menu. A form that leaves a guest wondering what "the bird" means will come back with questions instead of answers.

Most groups have an organiser: the colleague who booked the party, the friend who arranged the table. Send the pre-order form to the organiser, as one form for the whole group, rather than asking the venue to collect twenty separate replies.

The organiser knows the guests and can chase them in a way the venue cannot. Make their job easy: a single sheet they can share, fill in or forward, and a clear date by which the venue needs it back.

Set the pre-order deadline well before the party, but not so early that guests have not yet decided to come. For most groups, a deadline of seven to fourteen days before the date works: late enough that the guest list is settled, early enough for the kitchen to plan and order.

Put the deadline in the booking confirmation, in the email that sends the form and on the form itself. A deadline mentioned once is easy to forget; one that appears everywhere becomes part of the booking.

Send the form when the booking is confirmed, not weeks later. The organiser has the party on their mind at the moment they book, and a form that arrives with the confirmation is far more likely to be passed on quickly than one that arrives a month later.

If the booking is made months ahead, send the form with the confirmation and a short reminder a few weeks before the deadline, when the guest list is likely to be settled.

One or two reminders are enough. A friendly note a few days before the deadline, saying which guests' choices are still missing, gives the organiser exactly what they need to chase their colleagues. A second short note on the deadline day catches the rest.

Keep the reminders specific: "We have choices for fourteen of your twenty-two guests" is far more useful than "Please send your pre-order". The organiser can act on the first; the second only reminds them that something is overdue.

Guests change their minds, and some changes after the deadline are inevitable. Decide in advance what the venue will accept: changes of dish up to a set number of days before the party, changes of numbers up to a final numbers date, and no changes on the day except for allergies.

Write the rules into the terms, and be generous within them. A guest who swaps the salmon for the turkey a week before is easy to accommodate; ten guests changing on the morning of the party are not.

Some guests will never send their choices. Have a plan for them, and say what it is in the terms: a default dish, the chef's choice at each course, or a choice taken at the table at a set time before the food is served.

Tell the organiser which guests are missing before the default applies, so nobody is surprised on the night. A guest who receives the default after being warned rarely complains; one who was never told usually does.

Group sizes change too: a colleague drops out, a partner is added. Set a final numbers date, often a few days before the party, after which the venue charges for the number confirmed even if fewer guests arrive.

The final numbers date protects the kitchen's preparation and the venue's margin. It is also where the party's deposit and terms meet the pre-order: the number confirmed by that date is the number the kitchen cooks for and the venue charges.

Event deposits and pre-orders work best together. A deposit paid at booking commits the group to the date; the pre-order and the final numbers date commit them to the menu and the size. Together, they turn a hopeful booking into a planned party.

Make the terms for both clear in the same place: the deposit, when the balance is due, the final numbers date, the pre-order deadline and what happens if any of them is missed. Our guide to festive deposits: terms to publish in October covers the deposit side in detail.

The pre-order is the best moment to collect allergies and dietary needs. Ask for them on the form, beside each guest's choices, and ask the organiser to check them with each guest rather than guessing.

When an allergy is listed, confirm it with the organiser or the guest, and plan the dish with the kitchen. An allergy known a week ahead can be planned safely; one discovered over the starters is a risk to the guest and a delay to the whole table.

Once the choices are in, the kitchen needs them in a form it can use: for each party, the number of each dish at each course, the allergy-free versions and the time the party sits down. For each night, the totals across every party.

The nightly totals become the prep list and the order for the suppliers. A kitchen that knows it will serve 64 turkey, 38 salmon and 22 vegetarian mains on Friday prepares exactly that, with a small margin, and throws away far less on Saturday morning.

Pre-orders make ordering far more accurate. Add up the dishes for each week of the festive season from the pre-orders already received, and order the main ingredients against those totals rather than estimates.

Order early for the items that run short in December, and confirm the delivery dates. A kitchen that orders from real numbers spends less and runs out less than one that orders from last year's guess.

The floor needs the pre-orders as much as the kitchen. A seating plan for each party, showing where each guest sits and what they chose, lets the server place every dish without asking. Place cards with each guest's name, and a small mark for their main course, make it simpler still.

Print the plan for each party's server, with the allergies highlighted. When the mains arrive, the server reads the plan, not the table, and every guest receives their own dish.

Some groups want to plan their own seating; others are happy for guests to sit where they like. If the organiser wants a seating plan, ask for it with the pre-order, and set the place cards before the guests arrive.

If guests choose their own seats, the server can match each guest to their pre-order by name as they sit down, with the sheet in hand. Either way works, as long as the server has the choices before the first course.

On the night, check the party's sheet before the guests arrive: the numbers, the choices, the allergies and the seating. Brief the server and the kitchen together, so both know which guests have allergies and which dishes are going where.

Serve each course to the party together. With the choices known, the kitchen can send the whole party's mains at once, and the server can place them in a single round, which is what makes a group dinner feel smooth.

Even with a pre-order, a guest may arrive and want something different. Decide in advance how much flexibility the kitchen can offer on the night. On a quiet night, a change is easy; on the busiest Friday, it may not be possible.

A polite answer that explains the pre-order system, with an alternative if one is available, is usually accepted. The pre-order is a promise the venue made to the whole party, and keeping it for everyone matters more than one change.

Sometimes a party arrives with an extra guest who was not on the list. Decide in advance whether the venue can add them, at what price and what they can order, so the server can answer at once instead of asking the kitchen in the middle of service.

Keep a few portions of each dish beyond the pre-ordered totals for exactly this. A small margin, planned in the prep, turns an awkward moment into a warm welcome.

A pre-ordered party's bill is simpler than an ordinary one, but it still needs care. Agree in advance whether the group will pay one bill or split it, and what is included in the set price. Drinks, supplements and any extras ordered on the night should be clear before the bill arrives.

If the party paid a deposit, show it on the bill clearly, so the organiser sees what is left to pay. A bill that the organiser can understand at a glance ends a good party well.

In the busiest weeks, a venue may have dozens of festive bookings, each with its own pre-order, deadline and final numbers date. Keep one list of every party: the date, the organiser, the deposit, the pre-order status and the final numbers.

Review the list each week: which pre-orders are in, which are overdue and which parties are coming up. A list reviewed every Monday is the difference between calm and chaos in the second week of December. Our guide to festive bookings: open the diary in September covers the wider season.

Make one person responsible for the pre-orders: sending the forms, sending the reminders, entering the choices and preparing the kitchen and floor sheets. When the job is shared loosely, everyone assumes someone else has chased the late party.

Give that person a deputy for their days off, and a simple routine: forms sent on the day of booking, reminders on set days and sheets prepared the day before each party.

Even good systems make mistakes. A choice entered against the wrong guest, a dish counted twice, an allergy missed in the copy to the kitchen. Plan for them with simple checks: the kitchen's totals compared with the forms, the allergy list read aloud at the briefing and the seating plan checked against the sheet.

Two minutes of checking before each party prevents most of the mistakes that spoil a festive night.

After the season, look at how the pre-orders worked: how many arrived by the deadline, how many needed reminders, how many guests received the default, how many changes came after the deadline and how accurate the kitchen's preparation was.

Use the figures to adjust next year's deadline, reminders and terms. A season that shows most pre-orders arriving after the second reminder suggests a better first message, not more chasing.

Pre-orders are not only for large parties. A table of six on a busy December Saturday, ordering from the festive menu, benefits from choosing in advance as much as a party of twenty: the kitchen knows what to prepare and the table is served faster.

Offer the form to every festive booking above a modest size, and make it optional for the smallest tables. Many guests like knowing their meal is decided, and the kitchen's totals become more accurate with every form returned.

Ask for children's choices, and for every dietary need, on the same form. A child's meal that arrives with the adults' mains keeps the whole table happy, and a vegan guest whose choice was planned a week ahead receives a dish made with the same care as everyone else's.

Mark the dietary choices clearly on the kitchen's totals and the seating plan, so the special plates go to the right guests without a question.

An invented brasserie takes forty festive party bookings. Each confirmation carries the pre-order form for the organiser, the deadline of ten days before the party and the final numbers date of three days before. One reminder goes five days before the deadline, listing the guests still missing, and a second on the deadline day.

Thirty-four parties return their pre-orders on time, five after the second reminder and one not at all, whose guests receive the chef's choice after the organiser was told. The kitchen prepares from the totals, the servers serve from the seating plans and the brasserie throws away a fraction of the previous year's festive food.

In servearound, the festive menu can be offered on the booking page as an add-on, with a price per guest, what is included and fields the guest fills in when booking, such as the number of each main. Those answers are one set per booking, not a choice for each guest, so individual pre-orders, seating plans and kitchen totals are kept in your own sheet; the team can see and edit the add-on on the booking.

Allergies recorded on a booking are saved to the guest's profile and appear at the head of the kitchen's tickets for that table, and on the till, each dish can be rung to the guest's seat. servearound does not take deposits yet: they are coming. See Reservations and the menus module.

Usually seven to fourteen days before the party, once the guest list is settled.

The group's organiser, on one form for the whole party.

One or two, saying exactly which guests are still missing.

Apply the default the terms describe, after telling the organiser.

Up to a set date, within the terms; after that, only for allergies.

They give exact totals for each dish, so the prep and the orders match the parties.

From a seating plan with each guest's choices and allergies.

Yes. Event deposits commit the group to the date; pre-orders commit them to the menu.

Christmas pre-orders turn a festive party from a guessing game into a planned evening. Offer a short group set menu, send one simple form to the organiser with the booking confirmation, set a deadline of one to two weeks before and send one or two reminders that name the guests still missing.

Collect allergies with the choices, set rules for changes and a final numbers date, and plan for the guests who never reply. Turn the pre-orders into kitchen totals and a seating plan, pair them with event deposits and clear terms, and give one person the job, so December's festive bookings are served from the plan, not from the table.