Playbook, restaurant
The per head charge nobody read before they booked
Restaurants lose real money to tables that do not arrive, and the response almost everywhere has been to take a card at the point of booking and charge per empty seat afterwards. The term is reasonable. The problem is that it is agreed in a checkbox during a booking flow and remembered by nobody, so it is discovered for the first time as a charge on a statement.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for deposits and no-show fees holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- The charge here is per head rather than per booking, which is what makes it feel punitive: a party of eight where three drop out produces a bill for three empty chairs on a table that was still used.
- Nothing is taken up front in most cases, so the guest has no sense of having paid anything, and the card was captured to hold the table rather than to pay for it.
- A no show charge on a service is generally enforceable only where the term was made clear before booking and is a fair reflection of the loss, so stating it early is what makes it stick rather than what puts guests off.
- The window is short and specific to this trade: a table given up at four in the afternoon can still be resold for the same evening, which is why the notice period here is measured in hours rather than days.
How it arrives
- do you take a deposit for a table
- what happens if we cancel on the day
- will you charge me if one of us does not turn up
- why do you need my card details to book
- how late can i cancel without being charged
- do you charge for children who do not eat
What has to be indexed for this to work
| The exact terms as they appear in your booking flow | The amount per head, whether it is taken at booking or held against the card, the notice period in hours, and the wording the guest ticked. Index the wording itself rather than a summary, so what the assistant says and what the guest agreed to are the same sentence. |
|---|---|
| Which bookings the terms apply to | Usually large parties, weekends, tasting menus and certain dates, and not a table for two on a Wednesday. Guests assume the harshest published term applies to them, so saying which bookings it does not apply to is as valuable as saying which ones it does. |
| What happens to the money either way | Whether a deposit is redeemed against the bill, whether it is refundable inside the notice period, how long a refund takes to appear, and whether a partial no show is charged for the missing covers only. That last point is the one that generates the complaint. |
The reply
We hold a card against tables of six or more and for weekend bookings, and nothing is taken at the time. If the booking is cancelled or the numbers drop with less than the published notice, we charge the per head amount for the seats we could not resell, and a deposit taken in advance comes off your bill on the night. A table for two midweek does not need a card at all.
It names who the term applies to before it names the charge, which stops the guest reading it as a threat aimed at them. It says nothing is taken now, because the fear behind the question is usually that money has already gone. Then it explains the partial charge in the same breath, since that is the version that turns into a dispute later.
Where it stops
The trigger. A guest saying they have already been charged, or disputing a charge, or asking for a charge to be waived because of illness or a bereavement.
I cannot see bookings or payments, so I am not able to look up a charge or reverse one. Leave your name, the email you booked with and what happened, and a manager will look at it and come back to you. I can explain the published deposit and notice terms in the meantime.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- That a charge will be waived, refunded or reduced in a particular case.
- That a card has or has not been charged, since payments are not visible here.
- That the notice period can be stretched because a booking is quiet.
- That the terms apply to a booking type they were not published for.
Questions
- Does publishing the charge cost us bookings?
- It costs you the bookings that were going to become disputes. A term that is clear before booking is the version that holds when it is applied, and a guest who reads it and books anyway has genuinely agreed to it. The bookings you lose are mostly the ones that were never going to show.
- Can it check whether we charged somebody?
- No. There is no view of the booking system or of payments, and there should not be, because the person typing has not been identified in any way. It states the published terms and takes an enquiry for anything that involves a real transaction.
- How do we stop it sounding harsh?
- Write the fallback and the terms document in the order a guest reads them: who it applies to, that nothing is taken now, what the notice period is, and what happens to the money. Most of the hostility this topic attracts comes from the charge being stated before the context.
Keep reading
- Everything for a restaurantHours, last orders, deposits and dietary options are safe ground. Confirming a dish is free of an allergen never is.
- Handling deposits and no-show fees in generalThe notice period, the charge, and why vague policy wording produces the complaint. Taking a card number in a conversation is out of scope.
- The handover a restaurant cannot do by emailA callback form suits a private hire enquiry. For an allergy before tonight's service it does not, and the wording must lead with the phone.
- The car park closes before the second sitting doesThe multi storey locks before the late sitting finishes, the bay outside is a loading bay, and the evening tariff starts on the hour.
- A table is a slot, not an eveningShifting a table from seven to eight is not small when the same table is booked again at nine, and a chat window cannot move it.
Try it on your own material
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