Last week, I sent out our friends and family (F&F) invitations via our email mailing list and got a 24-hour crash course in how reservation systems really work. Note: I’ve never worked as a Host before, so reservation systems have always been a little bit of a mystery to me. What I was always told, and intimately understand now, is that it’s all about finding the right settings for your space, getting the right pacing down, and figuring out the right combination of tables that will maximize your cover count without straining the kitchen. And it’s even tricker when you have no real data to work with (aka. being a new restaurant) and no clue of how the booking behaviors are in your own city. Let me tell you, I quickly learned.
I really hope that everyone who willingly booked tables for our F&F knows that they’re signing up for a very unusual service. They are basically electing to spend their evening (a school night btw) being our guinea pigs and potentially having a very chaotic and very delayed dinner experience while our team learns how to move and work in our restaurant for the very first time. Sure, it’s a discounted meal, but it’s a discounted meal because we’re mostly unable to predict the evening they’re about to have.
Before I sent the invites out, I wasn’t sure how many of y’all would be up for that, the madness of a first service. But now I know! I guess A WHOLE LOT OF YOU are up for that, because we are officially at capacity, and in a way that I never thought we’d be. It very quickly went from an “ease into soft opening” type of night to a true stress test for our team right from the get. Not going to lie, it really stressed me out seeing the reservations flood in the way that it did, with more and more people emailing/dm’ing to be on the waitlist, or to be notified of cancellations, or wanting to add more to their parties. But in the same breath, I feel so grateful that so many of you want to be a part of this opening!
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to super junior designer to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.