Glossary
Restaurant Operations Glossary
Reservations, no-shows, deposits, table turnover and more — the language of running a restaurant, in plain definitions.
- Cover
- A cover is a single guest served at the restaurant; "120 covers tonight" means 120 people were served.
- Deposit / prepayment
- A deposit is an amount collected from the guest up front to secure a booking; it is deducted from the bill if they arrive and offsets the loss if they do not.
- Dwell time
- Dwell time is the average time a guest party spends at the table and is used to set reservation slot length.
- Host
- The host greets guests at the door, seats reservations onto the floor plan, and manages the waitlist.
- No-show
- A no-show is a guest who books a table but never arrives and never cancels, leaving the restaurant with an empty table and direct lost revenue.
- Overbooking
- Overbooking means accepting slightly more reservations than capacity to offset expected no-shows and cancellations; done carelessly it risks turning guests away at the door.
- Party size
- Party size is the total number of guests on one reservation and the key input for table assignment and deposit rules.
- Prepayment
- Prepayment is charging the full menu or set price at the time of booking, typically for special-occasion menus and events.
- Reserve with Google
- Reserve with Google lets a guest book a table straight from the restaurant’s card in Google Search or Maps.
- Table turnover
- Table turnover is how many separate guest parties a table serves during one service period; higher turnover means more revenue from the same capacity.
- Waitlist
- A waitlist lets a guest queue for a time slot that is currently full and be notified automatically when a table opens up.
- Walk-in
- A walk-in is a guest who arrives without a prior reservation; the restaurant must manage booked and unbooked demand at the same time.