Guests confirm before they come

THE NO SHOW IS THE ONLY REAL COST OF TAKING BOOKINGS, and it is not solved by taking a card number off people. It is solved by asking.

TWELVE HOURS OUT WE ASK. Three hours out the answer is due. Both numbers are the ones your own trade asks for.

WE ASK ON BOTH DOORS, by SMS and by email, and nothing goes out in the middle of the night: an ask that would have landed after ten at night waits until nine in the morning.

THE GUEST CONFIRMS WITH ONE TAP AND NO LOGIN, right up to the sitting. A guest who has already been scanned in confirms themselves automatically, because they are standing in your dining room and asking them is silly.

AT THREE HOURS, AN UNCONFIRMED TABLE COMES BACK TO YOU, where cancelling is switched on, and your phone is pushed with the words that matter: the table is yours to sell again. The guest gets an email explaining it.

IT FAILS OPEN, DELIBERATELY. If we never managed to ask, because we had no working phone or email for that guest, the table stands. Cancelling a booking because our own message did not go is the worst possible outcome, so it does not happen.