Glossary

Pacing

What is pacing in restaurant reservations?

Pacing is controlling how many guests land in each booking slot so the kitchen and floor are never hit by a wave they cannot serve. A room that can physically seat 120 might pace online bookings to 30 covers per 15-minute slot, spreading the night instead of stacking it at 7:30. Reservation systems implement pacing as a cap per slot (by covers or by parties); hosts implement it by offering 7:15 when 7:00 is stacked. Pacing complaints are real product differentiators: one documented Resy review asks for finer control than cover-count-only pacing. Good pacing is invisible to guests and is the difference between a full book and a smooth one.