Glossary

Waitlist

How does a restaurant waitlist work?

A waitlist is the ordered queue of parties waiting for a table, each with a name, party size and quoted wait. Walk-ins join at the host stand (or online in some systems), get a realistic quote, and are called or texted when their table is ready; no-response entries are marked as left after a grace period. A good waitlist quote is honest and slightly padded: guests forgive a 25-minute wait quoted as 30, never the reverse. Waitlists also rescue overbooked nights, turning a stacked 7:30 into a managed queue. Dedicated waitlist apps (TablesReady, Waitlist Me) do only this; reservation platforms like TableHelm run the waitlist and the book on one screen.