restaurant table turnover rate calculator
How many covers can your room actually do?
Seats, turn time and service hours set your ceiling. Know it, and every pacing and policy decision gets easier.
Your service
Capacity, at full occupancy
These are ceilings: they assume every seat refills the moment it clears. Real rooms run below 100% occupancy (odd party sizes on even tables, gaps between turns), so treat the gap between this number and your actual covers as your opportunity, not a failure.
The math, and what to do with it
Turns per service is service minutes divided by average turn time; covers per service is seats times turns; revenue per seat hour divides service revenue by seats times hours. All three are ceilings that assume perfect refills. The practical use is the delta: if the calculator says 200 covers and your busy-night reality is 140, the missing 60 live in seating mix (deuces on four-tops), gaps between turns, campers, and no-shows on prime slots.
Each has a lever: match party sizes to the tightest table that fits, pre-bus and pace the check drop, set realistic turn times per party size in your booking rules, and put a card hold behind prime-time bookings so held tables actually fill. The no-show calculator prices that last lever, and the glossary covers the vocabulary (turn time, pacing, camping) if you are building a playbook for the host stand.
Questions
Turnover calculator FAQ
Turns per service = service length in minutes divided by average turn time. Covers per service = seats x turns. With an average check, revenue per seat hour = service revenue divided by (seats x service hours), which is the cleanest yield metric for comparing nights.
Run the floor with real numbers
TableHelm's floor plan and timeline pace your book by table and turn time, free for one location.