Glossary

Service period

What is a service period?

A service period is a named block of operating hours the book is organised around: lunch, brunch, dinner, late night. Each period has its own start time, last seating, table availability and often its own menu and pacing rules. Reservation systems generate bookable slots from service periods (say, every 15 minutes from 5:30 to a 9:30 last seating on weekdays), which is why defining them precisely matters: the end of a service period is the last time a party can be seated, not the time the kitchen closes. Separate periods also keep reporting honest, since a strong dinner can hide a dying lunch if the numbers are mixed.