Walk-ins
What this covers
Seating guests who arrive without a booking, in about twenty seconds, without leaving the floor. You need permission to create bookings — Owners, Managers and Hosts.
What a walk-in is here
A walk-in is a normal booking created for guests already standing in front of you. It goes into the same system as everything else, so the table shows as occupied, the guest gets a profile, and the covers count towards your reports. It is not a lesser kind of record.
How to add one
- Dashboard — the Walk-In button.
- Live View — click the free table you are about to seat them at.
- Reservations — the walk-in option beside New Reservation.
The walk-in form is deliberately shorter than the full booking form. Give it the pax, the table and a name, and you are done. You can add the rest later if they turn out to be worth remembering.
The one rule walk-ins skip
Walk-ins ignore the notice rules — the ones that stop a booking being made too close to the time. Somebody at your door has obviously given no notice, so applying that rule would be nonsense.
Everything else still applies: the table must be free, big enough, and inside your opening hours. So a walk-in can still be refused a particular table, for the reasons in Why a time or table isn't offered.
Walk-in, waitlist or booking?
| Situation | Use |
|---|---|
| They are here and you have a table now | Walk-in |
| They are here and you have nothing free yet | Waitlist — see How the waitlist works |
| They want to come back another night | A normal booking |
Good to know
- Name them if you can. Even just a first name turns a walk-in into a guest record, so if they come back you can see it. A regular who started as a walk-in is exactly the person you want to recognise.
- They are marked as walk-ins, so your reports can tell you what share of your covers arrive without booking — useful when deciding how many tables to hold back.
- Complete them like any other booking when they leave, with the bill if you are recording it.