Local guides · Post 32
The no-show a West Wales restaurant never chases
For pubs and restaurants across Ceredigion and Pembrokeshire: how a short confirmation the day before turns empty tables back into covers, and keeps a person deciding who gets the seat.
The booking came in on a Thursday night in Cardigan. Six for Sunday lunch, taken on the phone during service, written on the pad by the till. By Sunday the pad has three more bookings on it, one has been crossed out and rewritten, and nobody has spoken to the six since.
They do not come. Nobody calls to ask why, because by Monday there is a new week of bookings and the pad has moved on. That is the loop: tables are taken, the diary fills, and the no-shows are never followed up.
It happens in Aberaeron in the summer rush and in Narberth on a wet Tuesday. A booking made by message in Tenby is even easier to lose, because it sits in a phone that is behind the bar while someone is pulling a pint.
The maths (a sketch, not a client figure)
Start with one assumption: an hour of front of house time is worth £14. That is a sketch, not a figure from a client.
Take the bookings admin on one site: writing them down, checking the pad, and the confirmation calls that only happen when someone remembers.
- × 20 minutes a day = the time cost
- × 6 days a week = 2 hours a week
- × £14 an hour (assumption) = £28 a week
- × 50 working weeks = £1,400 a year
The empty table costs more than the admin. Assume a table of four at £25 a head, which is another assumption, and two no-shows a month: that is £200 of covers that were booked and never came. A drafted confirmation the day before, sent while the guest can still reply, is the cheapest lever on both numbers.
Score it: the three checks
- Hours. Bookings and the missing confirmations eat a few minutes most days, and a busy week makes it an hour. It clears the bar because it happens every week without fail.
- Repeat. A confirmation is a short pattern: name, day, time, number of seats, and one line asking them to say if plans change. One written page covers it, so a new starter can run it.
- Risk-if-wrong. A confirmation to the wrong number is a small muddle. Telling a guest their table is held when it is not, or releasing a table that was wanted, costs the booking and the goodwill. That is why a person checks before anything sends.
Try one thing this week (free)
Write your confirmation message down, in your own words, and send it the day before every booking you take this week. Keep it to four lines: the day, the time, the number of seats, and a request to reply if plans change. Judge it on Friday: count the replies, and count the tables that went empty. That page becomes the spec.
Where a person stays
Software can hold the booking list and prepare the confirmation, and it can flag every booking that has not been answered. It never decides who keeps a table. A named person reads each draft, decides whether to send it, and whether to hold the seats or let the table go. Anything unusual goes to them. Financial work, deposits and refunds, stays approval only without exception.
FAQ
It is one message the software writes, and it takes seconds to approve. The replies it brings back are the point.
No. The booking goes into one list either way, and the confirmation goes out from that list.
That reply goes to a person, who decides whether the table still fits or needs moving.
Yes. The software never releases or reassigns a table on its own.
The £499 diagnostic. One fixed fee: a one-hour call, a written report, and a 30-minute follow-up call that ranks what to build first. 5 hours a week found or a full refund, and the whole fee credits against any build.