Playbook, restaurant
The car park closes before the second sitting does
Arrival at a restaurant is timed in a way it is almost nowhere else. The guest is not wondering where the car goes, they are wondering whether the car can go anywhere in the nine minutes between arriving in the one way system and losing a table that somebody else wants. That turns a parking answer into a walking distance, a tariff, and a last barrier time, and almost every restaurant publishes none of the three.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for location and parking holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- The answer needs a clock in it because the guest is on a booked slot, so how far the car park is in walking minutes matters more than how many spaces it has, and a space eight minutes away is a late table.
- Town centre car parks lock long before a dining room empties, which means the useful fact here is the last exit time rather than the opening hours, and a car left behind a barrier after a long dinner is a problem no member of the floor team can fix.
- Evening tariffs step on the hour in most towns, so the same bay costs a lunch guest and a dinner guest different money, and quoting one figure for the day is how somebody arrives at the machine annoyed before the first course.
- The bay directly outside the door is usually a loading bay and it is the first thing every arriving guest sees, so naming it as the space to drive past is worth more than any amount of general advice about nearby parking.
How it arrives
- where can we park for dinner
- what time does the car park shut
- can we drop someone at the door
- how far is it from the station
- is the entrance the one next to the pub
- is parking free after six
What has to be indexed for this to work
| The car parks you actually send guests to | Two or three by name, each with the walking time in minutes rather than in yards, the evening tariff and the hour it changes, and the time the barrier locks overnight. A list of car parks without a lock up time is the version that produces a phone call at half past midnight. |
|---|---|
| The street outside, written honestly | Where the loading bay is and when it is enforced, which lines become free in the evening and at what time, whether a taxi can stop at the door, and whether there is a permit zone that starts before your first sitting. Guests read this once and stop asking. |
| Which door, on a shared frontage | Most sites sit next to another premises and a fair number share a doorway or a passage. Name what is either side of you, what the sign says, whether the entrance is the one at street level, and whether there is a step up from the pavement. |
| Arriving without a car | Nearest station and the walk in minutes, the last train back on a Saturday, where the taxi rank is and whether the road is closed to traffic in the evening. A table that finishes at half ten needs the departure answered as well as the arrival. |
The reply
The multi storey two streets back is the one most guests use and it is about four minutes on foot, with the evening tariff starting at six [1]. It locks at midnight, so if you are on the later sitting it is worth taking the car out before then rather than after coffee. The bay right outside us is a loading bay and it is enforced in the evening, so it is not somewhere to leave a car, though a taxi can stop there to drop somebody off [2]. Our door is the dark one to the right of the pub frontage and there is one step up from the pavement.
It leads with a walking time rather than a distance, because that is the number a guest with a booked table is actually converting in their head. The lock up time is given before it is asked for, since nobody thinks to ask it and everybody needs it. The loading bay is named and disposed of in one sentence, which stops the guess that costs a ticket.
Where it stops
The trigger. The guest asks you to hold a bay, reserve a space, validate a ticket, or says they have been clamped or cannot get a car out of a barrier car park.
I cannot hold a space or do anything about a ticket, and the car park is not run by us. If you are stuck right now the fastest route is the phone number on this page. Otherwise leave me your name, an email and what has happened and I will pass it straight to the manager.
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
- Never say parking is easy or that there is usually a space, because usually is a guess about a Saturday evening and the guest who believed it arrives late for a table you have already promised twice.
- Never quote a single parking charge without the hour it changes, since the evening rate and the daytime rate are different numbers and the guest is reading this at the machine.
- Never suggest the loading bay is usable outside enforcement hours, because you are inviting a ticket in your own name.
- Never give walking directions that assume the road is open, when the street may be pedestrianised in the evening and a taxi cannot follow them.
Questions
- Can it tell somebody whether there are spaces free right now?
- No. It has no view of any car park and nothing to check against. It can say how many spaces the car park has, how long the walk is and when the barrier locks, which is what somebody deciding whether to drive in actually needs.
- Is it worth listing more than one car park?
- Two is usually right and four is noise. Give the closest and the one that still has room on a Saturday, and say which is which. Guests choose between two and start guessing at four.
- We are in a permit zone. Does that need saying?
- Yes, with the hours. A resident permit zone that starts at six catches exactly the guests booked for your first sitting, and it is the one arrival fact that turns into a fine rather than a delay.
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 location and parking in generalWhich entrance, where to park, the step free route, the nearest stop. Genuinely useful information that is almost never written down well.
- 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.
- The wait time is an estimate made by somebody standing in the roomHow the list actually works: a number left with the host, a wait that is a guess, and a table for two seated ahead of a six.
- The guest is not asking for informationA cold main, a forty minute gap between courses, a table by the door. What to record, and why the answer is never a policy paragraph.
Try it on your own material
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