Turn times: the number every booking rule needs

Every booking rule a restaurant sets rests on one assumption: how long a table will be occupied. It decides which times the diary offers, how many covers a service can take, when the next party can be seated, and what the host tells a walk-in about the wait. Get it right and the evening flows. Get it wrong and tables sit empty between bookings, or guests arrive to find their table still taken.

That assumption is the turn time. Many venues set turn times once, from a guess or a habit, and never look at them again. A single figure, such as two hours for every table, is applied to a couple having a quick supper and a family of eight celebrating a birthday, and to a quiet weekday lunch and a full Saturday night.

This guide covers what turn times are, how to measure your own by party size and by service, how to put them into your booking rules, how they shape the waitlist and the kitchen's pace, and the two services where a single figure cannot work. Every figure in it is an example, not a benchmark.

A turn time is the length of time a table is out of use for one booking: from the moment the party sits down to the moment the table is ready for the next party. It includes the meal itself, the time it takes to pay and leave, and the time it takes to clear and reset the table.

It is a planning figure. The diary uses it to decide when a table will be free again, so that a table booked at seven can be offered again at, say, nine. The host uses it to judge when tables will free up during service. The kitchen feels it as the rhythm of orders across the evening.

Two terms are often used as if they mean the same thing, and it helps to separate them.

Dwell time is how long guests actually stay: from sitting down to leaving. It is something you measure, and it varies from table to table and night to night.

A turn time is what you plan for: the dwell time you expect, plus the time it takes to reset the table, rounded to fit your booking slots. It is something you set.

The gap between the two is where most problems start. If guests usually dwell for an hour and fifty minutes and the turn time is set at an hour and forty-five, the diary will regularly offer tables that are not yet free. If guests dwell for an hour and a half and the turn time is two and a half hours, tables sit empty for an hour between bookings.

Almost every setting in a booking system leans on the turn time, whether it says so or not.

Change the turn time and all of these change with it. That is why it is worth measuring, rather than guessing. Our guide to booking capacity covers how capacity follows from it.

The figure that matters is yours, from your room, your menu and your guests. Measuring it is not difficult.

For each table, record when the party sat down and when the table was ready again. Many systems record seating and clearing times as part of service; if yours does not, a host can note the times on a sheet for a few weeks. Record the party size and the service alongside.

Collect a few weeks of data, at least, so one unusual night does not distort the picture. Then look at the times by party size and by service. The pattern is usually clear: larger parties stay longer, dinner runs longer than lunch, weekends run longer than weekdays, and special occasions run longest of all.

When you look at how long tables stay, use the median rather than the average. The median is the middle value: half the tables stayed longer, half stayed shorter. The average is easily dragged upwards by a few very long tables, such as a party that stayed for four hours on a birthday, and then overstates how long a typical table needs.

A simple way to set a figure is to start from the median dwell time for each party size and service, then add a margin so that most tables, not just half, are finished in time. Many venues look at the time by which about three tables in four have left, rather than the median alone, and use that as the starting point.

Party size is the biggest single influence on how long a table stays. Larger groups take longer to arrive, to order, to eat and to pay. An invented example, for a mid-range dinner service:

Your figures will be different. The point is that a single figure for all party sizes is either too long for small tables or too short for large ones, and usually both. Where your booking system lets you set durations by party size, use it. Where it allows only one figure, choose it with care, and look after large parties by hand, giving them more time in the diary.

The same party size stays for different lengths of time depending on the service. A weekday lunch for two may last an hour; the same couple at dinner on a Saturday may stay two. Sunday lunch, with families and long courses, often runs longest of all.

Set turn times for each service you run, not just for the venue. If your system offers only one figure, set it for your busiest service, where getting it right matters most, and watch the quieter services for tables that sit empty between bookings.

Between one party leaving and the next sitting down, the table has to be cleared, wiped, re-laid and checked. In a calm room that takes a few minutes; on a full Friday night, with servers stretched, it can take ten or fifteen. That gap is part of the turn time, and leaving it out is a common mistake.

Look at the gap between seatings in your own records: the time from one party leaving to the next being seated at the same table. If it is long, the cause may be the reset itself or simply that the next booking was not due yet. If it is short and guests regularly wait at the door for a table being cleared, add a few minutes to the turn time or look at how resets are done.

Once you have the figures, put them into your booking rules carefully.

Our guide to double bookings covers how durations that are too short cause one of their most common forms.

There is a simple relationship behind all of this, known as Little's law: the average number of parties in a system equals the rate at which they arrive multiplied by how long each one stays. It applies to queues of every kind, and a dining room is one.

An invented example: a room has 30 tables. If each party stays for an average of an hour and a half, the room can absorb at most 20 new parties an hour before tables run out, because 20 an hour multiplied by an hour and a half is 30 tables in use. If dwell time rises to two hours, the same room can take only 15 parties an hour. Small changes in how long tables stay make a large difference to how many guests a room can serve.

The table turnover rate is how many times, on average, each table is used during a service. It follows directly from turn times and from how many hours the service lasts. A four-hour dinner service with a turn time of two hours can, at best, turn each table twice.

Raising the table turnover rate is not about rushing guests. It is about removing the dead time: the wait for the menu, the wait for the bill, the time a cleared table sits unlaid, the gap between one booking ending and the next starting. Our guide to raising table turnover politely covers the gentle ways to do it.

For most services, turn times by party size work well. Two kinds of service break the pattern, and need a different approach.

Sunday lunch brings the widest range of party sizes and the most unpredictable stays. A couple may eat and leave in an hour and a quarter; a family of nine, three generations at one table, may stay for three hours and order dessert twice. Averages by party size still help, but the spread within each size is wide.

Many venues stop trying to turn tables at Sunday lunch at all, and run it as one or two fixed sittings: an early sitting from twelve, a later one from three, with the room reset between. Guests know how long they have, the kitchen cooks in two clear waves, and nobody is waiting at the door for a table that will not be free for another hour.

Pre-theatre, or any service built around a fixed end time, turns the logic around. The turn time is not set by how long guests would like to stay; it is set by when they have to leave. A party booked at 5.30 for a 7.30 curtain has an hour and a half, whatever their size.

Here, the right figure is the time to the end point, and the kitchen's job is to fit the meal into it. A short pre-theatre menu, orders taken quickly and the bill brought without being asked for make the service work. Treat the end time as the guest's most important booking note, and make sure the whole team knows it.

When a walk-in asks how long the wait will be, the host's answer rests on turn times. Look at which tables are likely to free up first: those seated longest ago, those already on dessert or asking for the bill. Then add the reset time.

Quoting a wait time honestly matters more than quoting a short one. A guest told twenty minutes who waits forty feels misled; one told forty who is seated in thirty feels looked after. Quote a range when you are unsure, update guests if the wait changes, and never quote a time you know to be too short just to keep someone at the door. Our guide to waitlist management on a night with no tables covers the rest of the waitlist.

Turn times decide when tables are free; pacing decides how many parties arrive at once. The two work together. A diary that offers every table at seven and again at nine sends the whole room to the kitchen twice in an evening, in two great waves. One that staggers bookings across the evening, using turn times to fit second sittings in where tables actually free up, sends orders at a pace the kitchen can cook for.

Pacing covers starts with knowing how long each table will be occupied, then spreading arrivals so that no half hour is overloaded. Our guide to pacing covers so the kitchen never drowns covers how.

Even with good turn times, some tables stay longer than planned: a party enjoying themselves, a slow kitchen, a long conversation over coffee. When the next booking for that table is due, the host has a few options, in order of preference:

If a time limit was set when the table was booked, telling the guest at the start makes the last option much easier. A host who says, at seating, "the table is yours until nine, is that all right?" rarely has to say anything awkward later.

Turn times set too long cost covers quietly. The signs are tables sitting cleared and empty for long stretches before their next booking, a diary that says "full" while the room has gaps, and walk-ins turned away while tables wait unused.

Look at the gap between seatings in your records. If tables regularly sit empty for half an hour or more between bookings on busy nights, the turn time is probably longer than it needs to be. Shorten it a little, for the party sizes where the gap is largest, and watch what happens over the next few weeks.

Turn times set too short are louder. Guests arrive for their booking and wait at the door; hosts juggle tables; servers hurry the people who are still eating; double bookings in time become a regular feature of the busiest nights.

If guests often wait more than a few minutes for a booked table, look at the turn times for the party sizes and services where it happens. It is usually larger tables and the busiest services. Lengthen the figure for those first, rather than for every table.

Some venues set a time limit on tables and tell guests at booking: "Tables are booked for two hours." Done well, it is useful information that helps guests plan and makes the evening run smoothly. Done badly, it makes guests feel rushed before they arrive.

If you set a limit, say it once, kindly, in the confirmation and at seating, and give the reason: the table is booked again later. Avoid repeating it during the meal. Be flexible when the next booking is not due or another table is free. The aim is to set expectations, not to clear the table on the stroke of the hour.

Turn times depend on the kitchen as much as the floor. A kitchen that takes forty minutes to send main courses on a busy night adds forty minutes to every table, and no booking rule can make up for it. Slow first courses, long gaps between courses and late desserts all lengthen the time each party stays.

Look at the kitchen's timings alongside the floor's. If dwell times rise on the busiest nights, the cause may be in the kitchen, not the dining room. Pacing arrivals more evenly often shortens turn times without anyone being hurried, because the kitchen can keep up.

Turn times change through the year. Summer terraces encourage long, lingering evenings; cold, wet weeknights bring shorter visits. Festive menus, with more courses and larger parties, stretch every table. A new menu with more dishes cooked to order slows the kitchen down.

Review turn times at the start of each season, and set separate figures for special dates, such as the festive season or a set menu night, rather than letting them distort your everyday figures.

Turn times are not set once. Look at them every few months, using recent weeks of data:

If the figures have moved, adjust your booking rules. Tell the team when you do, so the host knows the diary is offering tables differently and can watch the first few services closely.

An invented restaurant with 22 tables sets every booking at two hours, whatever the party size or service. On Saturday nights, large parties regularly overrun, and the eight-thirty bookings wait at the door. On weekday evenings, tables for two sit empty for long stretches between bookings.

It records seating and clearing times for six weeks. The median dwell time for twos at weekday dinner is an hour and twenty minutes; for parties of six or more on Saturdays, it is two hours and twenty. It sets turn times of an hour and forty-five minutes for small tables and two and a half hours for large ones, including the reset, and runs Sunday lunch as two fixed sittings. Weekday covers rise because tables are offered again sooner, and Saturday waits at the door almost disappear.

servearound uses one booking duration, set in minutes in the booking rules, to decide when a table is free again, alongside the booking times for each shift. It is a single figure for every party size today, so set it for your busiest service and give large parties more room by hand when you need to. See the reservations module.

Table analytics shows the figures turn times are built from: the median seating time, the gap between seatings, utilisation, revenue per seated hour and a heatmap of when the room fills, for each zone and each table. On the night, the waitlist tells each guest their place in the queue, and staff can add walk-ins to it from the reservations screen. See Analytics.

The time a table is out of use for one booking: from seating to the table being ready again, including the meal, paying and resetting the table.

Dwell time is how long guests actually stay, which you measure. A turn time is what you plan for: the expected dwell time plus the reset, which you set.

Record when each party sits down and when the table is ready again, with the party size and service, for at least a few weeks. Then look at the median by party size and service.

Yes. Larger parties stay longer. A single figure is usually too long for small tables and too short for large ones.

A few very long tables drag the average up. The median shows what a typical table actually needs.

Booked guests wait at the door, tables are rushed and double bookings in time become common on busy nights.

Tables sit empty between bookings, the diary says full while the room has gaps, and walk-ins are turned away unnecessarily.

They tell the host when tables are likely to free up, which is the basis for quoting a wait time honestly.

Services with a very wide spread of stays, such as Sunday lunch, often work better as fixed sittings, and services with a fixed end time, such as pre-theatre, are set by when guests have to leave.

Every few months, and at the start of each season or when the menu changes.

Turn times are the hidden number behind every booking rule: availability, capacity, second sittings, the waitlist and the kitchen's pace all depend on how long a table will be occupied. Measure them from your own seating and clearing times, use the median by party size and service, include the reset, and round to your booking slots.

Set longer figures for larger parties and busier services, run Sunday lunch as fixed sittings and set pre-theatre by the curtain, and quote waits from what tables are actually doing. Watch for tables that sit empty between bookings and guests who wait for booked tables, and review the figures every few months, so the diary offers the tables the room can really deliver.