restaurant no show cost
What do no-shows actually cost your restaurant?
Covers, average check, no-show rate: three numbers you know, one number you should. Free, runs in your browser, nothing stored.
Your room
Your policy
What no-shows cost you
What a card hold changes
Two effects. First, deterrence: operators who added card holds report no-shows falling to nearly zero (sources in the methodology below), which would recover most of the loss above. Second, compensation for the no-shows that still happen: at $15per head on today's numbers, charged fees would return about $46,800 a year ($900 a week). We model only the second effect with your inputs; no published deterrence percentage is reliable enough to bake in.
Methodology and sources
Lost revenue = covers per week x no-show rate x average check, extended to monthly (x52/12) and annual (x52) figures. The model assumes no-showed tables were not refilled; if your waitlist reliably rescues them, your true loss is lower. We do not use an "industry average" no-show rate anywhere in this tool: published rates vary too widely to be trustworthy, so the honest input is your own book (first-hand operator reports we researched run from roughly 2% in a small room with reminders to far higher on unmanaged weekend books).
The card-hold panel models compensation only (fee per head x no-showed covers). The deterrence effect is documented qualitatively in first-hand reports: operators describe no-shows going "from a weekly headache to basically never" with a $10-a-head hold, an "essentially zero" rate in fine dining at $50 a head, and about 80% of the problem solved in month one for parties of six and up. Sources: the r/restaurantowners no-show thread (full thread), Philadelphia Inquirer reporting on no-show fees (2026-01-14), and CBS News on typical fee levels (article).
What to do with the number
If the annual figure is meaningful, the fix is cheap: publish a policy (fee, window, grace period), put a card behind bookings, and send a day-before reminder. Our policy generator writes the wording from your numbers, and the no-show policy guide covers fee benchmarks and enforcement. On TableHelm Pro, the card hold runs on your own Stripe account and we take 0% of every fee you charge.
Questions
No-show calculator FAQ
Tally two numbers per service for a month: covers seated and covers that booked but never arrived (after the 15-minute grace call). No-showed covers divided by total booked covers is your rate. A paper book or spreadsheet works fine for the tally.
Stop paying for empty tables
TableHelm Pro adds card-hold no-show protection you keep 100% of. The free plan runs your whole book. No card to start.