OpenTable announced new features designed to address one of the biggest challenges for restaurants and managers: control over table turns. According to OpenTable, the time that a restaurant expects a table to be occupied can vary from 45 minutes to 4 hours making it difficult for floor managers to optimize their seating. 

“Controlling the pace of the dining room—how often tables turn over and when to fill them again – has significant financial impact for restaurants,” says Jon Morin, OpenTable’s VP of Product Management. “We’ve designed two new features that react to incoming reservations in real time and which adapt to operating goals. 70 percent of our most popular restaurants use these turn and flow controls to run and grow their business.”

Flexible turn controls allow restaurateurs and their staff to define a minimum number of times a table will turn over by party size or table and only offer booking times that help reach that goal. Customizable flow controls assist with pacing tables to help the kitchen from getting backed up and keep staff’s heads above water when the restaurant is at its busiest. Restaurant management can set these features, and then forget them. This frees up time to focus on guests, while the features do the hard work on their behalf.

“We’ve really enjoyed testing and experimenting with OpenTable’s new controls,” says Jonás J. Millán, restaurateur and owner of the Juvia Group. “The turn controls keeps moving, adjusting and adapting to how reservations come in. The feature gives you the power to control and increase your capacity in a controlled environment without jeopardizing the flow of the dining room.”