A table booking system that fills the diary at a pace the kitchen can take

Most table booking software will take eight covers at eight o’clock and leave the kitchen to cope. Hendra One knows which tables join up and how many arrivals the kitchen can take in any fifteen minutes. It costs £100 a site a month, with nothing per cover for you or your guests.

Try the demo See pricing

Your own login to our four-site demo group, in your inbox in about a minute, for 14 days. Nick rings everyone who tries it.

The Hendra One booking diary: an evening service laid out table by table, each booking showing the party size, the guest and the sitting.

The branded booking widget on a phone, asking a guest how many people are in their party.

The diary at the Bramblewood Arms, our demo pub

How the diary decides where people sit

Every booking, online or by phone, keeps to rules you set once for which tables join, how long each sitting gets and how many can arrive in any fifteen minutes.

Table combinations that leave room for later

For an eight, the diary picks two fours or a six and a two, whichever leaves the most room.

Arrival pacing, day by day

Cap the covers arriving in any fifteen minutes, with a different ceiling each day, so the kitchen keeps up.

Turn times for each sitting

An early table can get ninety minutes and the last one the whole evening.

Last booking times and closed slots

No online bookings as the kitchen shuts, and one slot can close while the rest stays bookable.

Walk-ins on the same grid

Walk-ins go straight onto the diary and count towards pacing, so the screen matches the room.

Overrides, by permission

Nobody overbooks by accident: only a manager with permission can book past pacing, under their own name.

Moving from another booking system?

Send us your old system’s export and we move your future bookings and guest list across for free, with each guest’s marketing choice kept. You choose the day you switch.

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A branded booking widget on your own website

Guests book on your own website or domain, in your branding, starting with party size.

Full days greyed out up front

Fewer abandoned bookings: guests see a day has gone before spending three clicks on it.

Guests choose where they sit

Guests can pick the garden or a booth themselves, where you allow it.

Occasions on the diary

The floor team knows it’s a birthday before the party walks in, because the diary shows it.

Special events with their own rules

Christmas Day or a tasting night becomes a one-off sitting with its own price and rules.

A waitlist that does the chasing

No callback list scribbled by the phone: when a table frees up, the waitlist is emailed.

Group pre-orders

Nobody chases the party for orders: each guest picks their courses from a link, and dishes can be tagged for the 14 UK allergens.

Deposits and no-show fees

No-shows are the price of being easy to book; the tools to stop them need no extra subscription.

£0per cover or per booking, however full the diary gets

2.5%commission on optional extras guests buy online, like a birthday package, and none on bookings, covers or deposits

Deposits per cover

Guests pay per head from a link, and the payment matches itself to the booking.

Automatic deposit rules

Unpaid deposits don’t hold tables for long: an hourly sweep puts the table back, and rules ask only where it matters.

Card on file for no-show fees

No card numbers kept at the venue: cards are postcode-checked and vaulted with Stripe.

Refunds by policy

Your cancellation policy decides what goes back and when, so nobody argues about it at the pass.

Paid extras

Money in before they arrive: a birthday package or a bottle on the table, paid online with the VAT handled.

One ledger

Deposits, extras and refunds land in one ledger that reconciles against Stripe.

What no-shows cost your venue in a year

Put in your own numbers. Published UK figures run from about 4.5% to 8% of bookings; the Norway Inn in Cornwall, a pub full of regulars, ran at 2.1% over three and a half years.

Covers booked a weekNo-show rateSpend a head

£19,500a year, from 650 covers who booked and never came

Deposits for big tables, and a card held for a no-show fee, come with the booking system at no extra cost.

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What to look for in a restaurant booking system

A table booking system has a harder job than it looks. Sunday can do four times Tuesday’s trade, and whoever takes the booking is often also carrying plates or pulling a pint. In a restaurant, a pub or a hotel dining room alike, the booking system has to be safe with nobody watching.

So check three things. Does it know tables 4 and 5 seat six once pushed together? Does it pace arrivals? The bad night is twenty-two covers arriving in the same ten minutes, with a table for each. And does it charge per cover, a fee that grows with exactly the trade you are building?

Hendra One covers all three, and the table booking system is one part of it. The diary shares its guest list with the guest CRM and marketing, its staff with the rota and its site settings with compliance, all on the same flat monthly price per site.

Table booking system questions

Does the table booking system charge per cover?

No. There are no per-cover or per-booking fees, for you or for your guests. The whole system is a flat £100 per site per month, which is the main reason operators move over from booking platforms that bill by the head.

Can it handle table combinations and turn times?

Yes. You describe your tables once, including which ones join together and for how many, and set turn times and arrival pacing per day. The diary then allocates within those rules, so an online booking cannot take a table your kitchen cannot serve.

Can we take deposits or card details to stop no-shows?

Yes. Deposits can be per cover, requested automatically by rules such as party size or day of the week, with a policy-driven refund on cancellation. You can also hold a card on file for a no-show fee, vaulted with Stripe rather than stored by us.

Will it work alongside our existing booking system while we move?

Yes. Until the day you switch, your old system carries on as it is. We import your future bookings up to that day for free, with your guest list and each guest’s marketing choice, and on the day you point your website’s Book button at your Hendra One booking page. Anything unusual we quote for first.

Can guests amend or cancel without phoning us?

Yes, once you switch it on. Confirmations can carry a self-service link to cancel, or to amend as well, up to the cut-off you set. Every confirmation has an add-to-calendar link, and pre-arrival reminders go out without anyone touching them.

The rest of Hendra One

All of it is in the same £100 a site.

Guest CRMOne guest list for every site, and emails that send themselves ComplianceSFBB, the fire log, accident book and COSHH, on a phone Rota & teamRotas costed as you build them, holidays and staff files MaintenanceEvery machine, its service date and who to ring Multi-siteHead office across every site in the group SecurityPermissions, audit trail and GDPR Pricing£100 a site a month, with everything in it

Try it on four busy sites

Leave your details and we’ll email you your own login to Bramblewood Inns, a demo group of four sites with a full diary, rotas, guest list and compliance records. Use every screen as your team would for 14 days, and Nick will ring to see how you are getting on.