What is a turn time, and who decides it

A restaurant books every table for ninety minutes, because that is what its booking system was set to when it opened. On a Saturday, couples finish in seventy minutes and leave tables empty until the next booking; groups of six take two hours, and the parties booked after them stand at the bar for half an hour. The ninety minutes suited nobody. It was a number chosen once and never checked against how long guests actually stayed.

What is a turn time? It is the length of time a table is given to one party before it is needed for the next: the time from the party being seated to the table being cleared and ready again. Every booking a venue takes rests on it. Set it well, and the room fills smoothly through the evening; set it badly, and guests either wait or the venue sells fewer covers than it could.

This guide covers what a turn time is, how it differs from dwell time, who really decides each one, how to measure both, how party size and menu change them and what to do about the gap between the time allowed and the time taken. Every venue and figure in it is an example.

A turn time is the time a venue allows a table for one party, including the time to clear and reset it before the next party sits down. A table with a turn time of two hours, booked at seven, is expected to be ready for the next party at nine.

Turn times are set by the venue, usually in its booking rules, and they decide how many parties each table can take in a service. Our guide to turn times: the number every booking rule needs covers how they shape a diary.

Dwell time is the time guests actually stay: from sitting down to leaving. It is decided by the guests, by the menu and by the pace of the service, not by the booking rules.

The turn time is a plan; the dwell time is what happens. When dwell times are shorter than the turn time, tables sit empty between parties. When they are longer, the next party waits. Both matter, and only one of them is in the venue's booking rules.

The venue decides the turn time. It chooses how long to allow each table, and it can set different times for different parties, days or services. That decision should rest on how long guests really stay, not on a round number chosen when the booking system was set up.

The manager who sets it should review it regularly, against the dwell times measured on the floor. A turn time that was right last year may not be right after a menu change.

The guests decide the dwell time, within limits the venue shapes. A three-course menu takes longer than a single course; a celebration lasts longer than a business lunch; a party of eight stays longer than a couple. The pace of the kitchen and the floor, how quickly each course arrives and the bill is brought, changes it too.

The venue cannot set the dwell time, but it can influence it: by the menu, by the pace of service and by how it presents the bill. It should never try to shorten it by rushing guests.

The gap between the turn time and the dwell time is where a venue gains or loses. If guests take seventy minutes and the turn time is ninety, every table loses twenty minutes per party. Over a busy evening, those minutes add up to tables that could have been sold.

If guests take two hours and the turn time is ninety minutes, the next party waits, the host apologises and the evening falls behind. Neither gap is good, and the cure is to measure the dwell time and set the turn time to match it.

Measure dwell time from when a party is seated to when it leaves, for every table, over several weeks. Look at the average, but also the spread: most couples may take seventy minutes, but some take ninety.

Group the figures by party size, day and service. Lunch dwell times are usually shorter than dinner; weekend dinners often longer than weekday ones.

Party size is the biggest single influence on dwell time. Larger parties take longer to arrive, to order, to eat and to pay, and they often stay to talk. A party of six may stay half an hour longer than a couple.

That makes a single turn time for every party a compromise. Where the booking system allows it, set longer turn times for larger parties; where it does not, choose a time that suits the parties the venue sees most, and plan the larger tables with extra margin.

The menu shapes dwell time too. A tasting menu of eight courses needs far more time than a two-course lunch. A set menu served at a steady pace has predictable dwell times; an à la carte menu with courses ordered one at a time has longer and less predictable ones.

When the menu changes, measure dwell times again. A new dessert that takes longer to make, or a new starter course, can add minutes to every table.

Dwell times change by day and service. Weekday lunches are often short, because guests return to work; weekend dinners are often long, because guests are relaxing. Early evening tables may leave sooner to go on to the theatre; late tables may linger.

Set turn times that reflect those differences where the system allows: shorter at lunch, longer on weekend evenings. A single turn time for the whole week suits no service perfectly.

Booking slots are the times a guest can book: every fifteen minutes, every half hour or on the hour. Together with turn times, they decide how the room fills. Slots spaced too closely send many parties to the kitchen at once; slots spaced too widely leave tables empty.

Choose slots that spread arrivals evenly and fit the turn times: a table with a two-hour turn time can take a party at seven and another at nine. Our guide to two sittings on a Friday: worth the risk? covers fixed slots for the busiest nights.

The table turnover rate is the number of parties each table serves in a service. It follows from the turn time: a table with a ninety-minute turn time in a four-and-a-half-hour dinner can, at most, turn three times.

Raising the turnover rate is one way to serve more guests without adding seats, but only if it comes from shorter gaps and well-set turn times, not from rushing guests. Our guide to table turnover rate: how to raise it politely covers the method.

The turn time includes the reset: clearing the table, cleaning it, setting it again. On a busy night, a slow reset can add ten minutes to every table, and the next party waits for a table that is empty but not ready.

Plan the reset as part of the service: a clearer who resets tables as soon as guests leave, cutlery and linen within reach, and a clear signal to the host that the table is ready.

Sometimes guests stay longer than the turn time, and the next party is waiting. The venue has a choice: move the waiting party to another table, offer them a drink at the bar, or, gently, let the lingering guests know the table is needed.

The best answer is planning: telling guests at booking or when they sit down how long the table is theirs, and serving the meal at a pace that fits. A guest who knew from the start is far more willing to move on than one who is surprised.

Tell guests the turn time when it matters: on busy nights, at the second sitting, or when a table is booked again soon after. A line in the confirmation, and a word from the server when they sit down, is enough.

Do it warmly. "We have the table for you until nine" sounds like information; "you need to leave by nine" sounds like a rule. Most guests accept the first without a second thought.

When guests leave before the turn time ends, the table is free early. On a busy night, a host who notices can seat a walk-in or move a waiting party; on a quiet night, it makes no difference.

The host's view of the room decides whether early departures are used. A host who sees which tables are free, and for how long until their next booking, can fill gaps that a fixed diary would leave empty.

Turn times affect the kitchen as much as the floor. A room that turns quickly sends more orders to the kitchen in each hour; one that turns slowly spreads them out. The kitchen's capacity is a limit on how short the turn times can be.

Set turn times with the kitchen's pace in mind. A room booked for seventy-five-minute turns, with a kitchen that needs ninety minutes to send three courses, will fall behind every night.

Turn times are one of the main drivers of revenue per available seat hour, the measure of how well a venue uses its seats and its time. Well-set turn times reduce the empty minutes between parties and raise the revenue each seat earns per hour.

Our guide to what RevPASH is, and whether you should track it covers the measure. Turn times are where many of its gains come from.

Review turn times every few months, and after any change to the menu, the service style or the room. Compare the turn times with the measured dwell times, by party size, day and service, and adjust where the gap is large.

Make small changes and measure again. A turn time cut by fifteen minutes on a Saturday may fill one more table; cut by thirty, it may leave guests waiting at the bar.

Turn times sit inside a bigger idea: matching the venue's capacity to the guests who want it, over time. Queueing theory, the study of waiting lines, offers a formal version of the same problem: how long things take, how they arrive and how to serve them without long waits or idle capacity.

A restaurant does not need the mathematics to benefit from the idea. Measuring how long guests stay, and setting the time allowed to match, is most of the benefit.

Celebrations last longer. A birthday, an anniversary or a large family meal often stays well beyond the usual turn time, and rightly so: guests who are celebrating should not be rushed.

Ask about the occasion when the booking is made, and give those tables more time, or book them where no later party follows. A celebration that is rushed is remembered for the wrong reason.

On nights with two sittings, the turn time of the first sitting is fixed by the start of the second. Tell first-sitting guests when they book, serve the courses at a pace that fits and present the bill in time.

Leave a margin between the sittings for the reset and the guest who lingers over coffee. Our guide to two sittings on a Friday: worth the risk? covers the balance.

Some guests stay long after paying, talking over the last of their drinks. On a quiet night, that is welcome; on a busy one, with a party waiting, it costs a table.

Offer the lingering guests a seat at the bar for their last drink, warmly and without pressure, when the table is needed. Most guests are happy to move once they understand.

The bill is often where a turn time is lost. A table that asks for the bill and waits ten minutes for it, then another five for the card machine, has added a quarter of an hour to its stay without wanting to.

Bring the bill promptly when it is asked for, and take payment quickly. A smooth end to the meal shortens the turn and leaves the guests with a better last impression.

A venue without a system that records seating and departure times can still measure dwell times. For a few busy services, note the time each party sits down and the time it leaves, on a simple sheet at the host stand.

A sample of fifty or a hundred tables, spread across days and party sizes, is enough to show whether the turn times are close to reality.

Bars and cafés rarely set formal turn times, because most guests do not book. But the same idea applies: how long guests stay, and how that affects the seats available at the busiest hour.

A café whose guests linger over laptops at lunchtime, or a bar whose tables are held all evening by one group, can use the same measurements to decide its seating policies.

On quiet nights, turn times matter less: there is no next party waiting, and guests can stay as long as they like. Let them. A relaxed evening on a quiet Tuesday is part of what brings guests back on a busy Saturday.

Keep the booking rules the same, so the diary works, but tell the team that on quiet nights the turn time is a guide, not a limit.

The team needs to understand turn times to work with them: why a table is booked again at nine, why the dessert should go out on time and why the bill should come promptly when asked for. A team that understands the plan helps keep it without making guests feel rushed.

Brief the team on the busiest nights: which tables are booked twice, which guests are celebrating and how long each table has. A server who knows the plan can pace each table to it.

After a busy night, look at what happened: which tables ran over, which parties waited and why. A party of six that stayed two and a half hours, or a dessert course that took twenty minutes, tells the manager where the next adjustment should be.

An invented brasserie books every table for ninety minutes. It measures dwell times for a month and finds that couples stay about seventy minutes at lunch and ninety-five at dinner, while parties of five or more stay about two hours at dinner. Weekend dinners run late every week, and weekday lunches leave tables empty.

It sets lunch bookings to seventy-five minutes, weekday dinners to ninety, weekend dinners to a hundred and five, and books larger parties at times with room after them. It tells guests at the second sitting when the table is needed. Weekend dinners stop running late, weekday lunches take one more seating per table and the bar stops filling with guests waiting for tables.

In servearound, the booking length is one setting in minutes for the venue, not one per party size, and each shift has its own booking times, which set the slots guests can book. So a venue can choose its slots shift by shift, but larger parties are given extra time by the booking times the venue offers and by the host, not by a separate length.

Table analytics show the median seating time, the gap between seatings and utilisation, the minutes each table had a party against the service minutes the shifts make available, by table and by zone, which is the measured side of turn time and dwell time. See Reservations and Analytics.

The time a venue allows a table for one party, including clearing and resetting it.

Turn time is the time allowed; dwell time is the time guests actually stay.

The venue, in its booking rules. The guests decide the dwell time.

From measured dwell times, by party size, day and service.

Yes. They usually stay longer.

Slots decide when parties arrive; turn times decide when the next can sit.

Plan ahead by telling them the turn time, and look after the waiting party.

Every few months, and after any menu or service change.

What is a turn time? It is the time a venue allows a table for one party, including the reset, and it shapes every booking. Turn times are decided by the venue; dwell time, how long guests actually stay, is decided by the guests, the menu and the pace of service, and the gap between them is where tables are lost or guests wait.

Measure dwell times by party size, day and service, set turn times to match, choose booking slots that spread arrivals and plan the reset. Raise the table turnover rate by closing the gaps, not by rushing guests, tell guests the turn time when it matters and review it after every change.