Online table booking: how to take bookings without phone calls
How to set up online booking at a café or restaurant: time slots, confirmation, reminders, a website widget and a Google button, and how to reduce no-shows.
Vitrina team4 minute read
Contents
In short
The phone rings when the dining room is full: the booking on a scrap of paper gets lost, and the guest who couldn’t get through goes next door.
Good online booking shows only free times, and your staff assign the table.
A confirmation with a calendar file and a reminder before the visit are the simplest protection against no-shows.
The booking button belongs where people look for dinner: on your website, on Instagram and in your Google Business Profile.
Why phone bookings don’t work
The phone rings when the dining room is full and nobody has time. The booking is written on a scrap of paper, it gets lost, and the guest who couldn’t get through books the restaurant next door. Online booking takes requests around the clock, even at night, when people plan their weekend dinner.
What good online booking looks like
- 1
The guest only sees free times
Slots follow the venue’s opening hours, and times with no free table are not offered.
- 2
Your staff confirm
The request goes to the manager, who confirms it and assigns a table or suggests another time.
- 3
The guest gets a confirmation
An email with the time, the address and a calendar file: the visit lands in the guest’s phone straight away.
- 4
A reminder before the visit
A few hours before the visit, a reminder with the option to cancel.
How to reduce no-shows
A no-show is a table you could have sold to other guests. On average the share is small, but no-shows happen more often in the evening, when the table could have been sold twice, and late cancellations hurt almost as much as no-shows.
2.33%
of bookings end in a no-show on average, according to Resos data on 3.77 million bookings at 2,417 restaurants from August 2025 to July 2026
Source: Resos No-Show Index 2026
56%
of cancellations in the same data arrive less than a day before the visit or after it has already started
Source: Resos No-Show Index 2026
Four habits against no-shows
Remind guests before the visit and let them cancel with one tap: cancelling is easier for a guest than simply not showing up.
Hold a booked table for a limited time and say so in the confirmation.
Keep phone bookings for large groups: there it is worth talking in person.
Mark who came and who didn’t: you will see on which days no-shows are more frequent.
What to do with phone bookings
Online booking doesn’t replace the phone. What matters is keeping all bookings in one system: the manager enters a booking taken by phone into the same list, and the table is never booked twice.
How Vitrina does it
Time slots based on the location’s opening hours, Telegram notifications for staff, a confirmation with a calendar file, a reminder for the guest by email, push or Telegram, “arrived” and “no-show” marks, a website widget and a Google button are described on the table booking page. There are no SMS reminders. Table booking has only just arrived in the product; we are switching it on for the first venues.
Frequently asked questions
Can the guest choose a specific table?
In Vitrina, no: the guest chooses the time and the number of people, and your staff assign the table when confirming. That way you seat the room yourself and don’t give a big table to a party of two.
Does online booking replace the phone?
No: some guests will keep calling, and large groups are better discussed in person. What matters is keeping all bookings in one system so a table is never booked twice.
How do I add booking to my website and to Google?
On your website as a widget or a link to the booking page; on Google as a “Book” button in your Business Profile. How it works in Vitrina is on the table booking page.