The Art of Fine-Tuning the Balance Between Reservations and Walk-Ins
Photo Caption: On Mondays, Brooklyn's Olmsted doesn't take reservations, instead encouraging walk-ins only.
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A full restaurant is great for business, but too full can be off-putting. Striking the right balance between walk-ins and reservations is crucial to success, but it's not easy.
The world of dining out can often come down to one thing — getting a table. Reservations at the restaurant of moment are often booked months in advance, and walk-ins, if even set aside, tend to be risky undertakings that can involve spending hours sipping expensive cocktails, hunger pangs growing more aggressive, while waiting for a table to open up.
Orchestrating that delicate balance between reservations and walk-ins is an art form, and a subject that occupies many of the waking (and sleeping) hours of the front of house teams charged with managing the book. Should all tables be set aside for reservations? Is it best to have a 50-50 mix? Or should it be somewhere in between, depending on the lifespan of the restaurant? What exactly is the right formula, one that ensures walk-ins and regulars can find a spot, and reservations are plentiful enough so that potential diners searching online are not lost to the competition. As with many issues in the restaurant industry, the answer is,
