Large parties at a café or restaurant: the booking, the table and the check

This is part 3 of our 7-part series Guest experience at a café or restaurant. Earlier: steps of service on one page and the first 30 seconds.

A table of twelve can make your week: a birthday, a team lunch, a family that comes back every year. It can also sink a Friday night, when twelve orders land in the kitchen at once and every other table waits.

The difference is almost always decided before the party arrives. This post covers the booking, the menu, the staffing, the service and the check. For events you cater off-site, see our catering order form and banquet event order templates instead.

Decide what "large" means for your room

There's no standard number. "Large" is the size at which a party changes how your room and kitchen work. For a small café, that might be eight; for a dining room with a long table, it might be fifteen.

Write down three things:

• Your large-party size: the headcount from which the rules below apply.
• Your maximum: the biggest group you can seat together without closing the room.
• When you take them: for example, "not between 12 and 1:30 on weekdays" or "Saturday dinner at 5:30 or 8:30 only". Hosting a big table at your peak means every other guest pays for it in waiting time.

A large party that walks in without warning is a different case. Be honest about the wait, using the quoting habits from our post on the first 30 seconds, and offer to split them across nearby tables if they'd rather not wait.

Take the booking on one form

Every large party gets the same questions, written in the same place. A booking that lives in one person's text messages disappears when that person is off.

Read the booking back to the organizer, then confirm it the day before: headcount, arrival time and anything that changed.

Allergies at booking: ask the organizer to collect them from the guests, and repeat the question at the table anyway. Our allergen matrix and allergy order procedure apply to every guest in the party, however busy the table is.

Set menu, pre-order or à la carte

For the kitchen, twelve people ordering anything they like at once is the hardest version of the evening. You have three options:

• Set menu: a short fixed menu, with two or three choices per course. Easiest for the kitchen and the fastest service.
• Pre-order: guests choose from the full menu (or part of it) a day or two ahead, through the organizer. The kitchen preps for the actual dishes.
• À la carte: the full menu on the night. Fine for smaller "large" parties at quiet times; risky at peak.

Many places use a simple rule: à la carte up to a certain size, pre-order or a set menu above it. Whatever you choose, say it at booking, so nobody feels surprised at the table.

Staff and pace the table

• One lead server owns the party. They're the organizer's contact all evening. Others can help run food and clear, but questions go to one person.
• Schedule for it. A party of fifteen at 7 pm may need an extra server or runner for two hours. Add the shift when you take the booking, not on the day.
• Tell the kitchen early. Headcount, menu, allergies and arrival time, at the pre-shift huddle (our huddle agenda (coming Nov 3) has a slot for it).
• Set the table before they arrive. Menus, water, and a seat plan if there is one.
• Fire in waves. With à la carte, agree with the kitchen how the order will be fired, for example in two halves a few minutes apart, so the rest of the room isn't stuck behind one long ticket.
• Drinks first. Take the drinks order as soon as most of the party is seated. It buys time for late arrivals.

Take the order by seat number

Seat numbers are the one habit that makes large parties work.

1. Pick a fixed starting seat, such as the one nearest the kitchen door, and number clockwise from there. Use the same rule on every table, every night.
2. Take orders in seat order, and ring each item to its seat number on the POS.
3. Run food by seat number, so each plate goes in front of the right guest without asking "who had the risotto?"
4. Split by seat number. If the check is split, the POS already knows who had what.

Serve each course to the whole table together, and clear when everyone at the table has finished, as on your steps of service page.

Splitting the check

The split is where a lovely evening can end badly: ten cards, three people who "only had a salad", and a server doing arithmetic at the table.

• Ask at booking and confirm at the start of the meal: one check, split evenly, or split by seat.
• Set a policy you can live with, such as "split by seat or evenly, any way you like", or "up to four cards per table". Whatever it is, say it at booking, not when the check arrives.
• With seat numbers, split by seat is quick. Without them, it's guesswork.
• Bring the check to the organizer, unless they asked for something else.

Automatic service charges: what they are, and what to tell guests

Many places add a fixed percentage for large parties. If you do, know how it's treated and tell guests in advance.

The IRS is clear that it isn't a tip. On its tip recordkeeping and reporting page, it lists as an example of service charges "Automatic charges added to a bill (for example, a mandatory 18% charge for large parties)." It explains: "A payment is a tip only if the customer voluntarily decides to pay it and determines the amount." And: "Service charges added to a bill by the employer and distributed to an employee are not tips. The employer must treat service charges as wages and must include those amounts on the employee’s Form W-2, Wage and Tax Statement."

The same page gives an example of a guest who leaves more: "if a restaurant automatically adds an 18% service charge but the customer voluntarily adds an extra amount, only the additional voluntary amount is a tip."

In practice:

• Say it at booking and print it on the menu: "A service charge of [your rate] is added to parties of [your size] or more."
• Train the team to explain it in one sentence, without calling it a tip.
• Know where the money goes. If you share it with staff, it's wages, run through payroll. Our post on tip pooling covers how service charges differ from tips for pay.
• Check your state and city rules on how service charges must be disclosed and taxed, and ask your accountant how to run them through payroll.

This is general information, not tax or legal advice.

Late arrivals and changed headcounts

• Late arrivals: decide how long you hold the table and when the kitchen starts. Tell the organizer at booking.
• Fewer guests: if a set menu is priced per head, say at booking whether it's charged on the booked or the actual headcount.
• More guests: be honest about what fits. Squeezing two extra chairs onto a table can block an aisle that needs to stay clear.

Where Mays fits

• Your large-party rules in one place: write the size, the times, the menu options and the service-charge wording in a Knowledge Base article, so whoever answers the phone gives the same answer. See Knowledge base basics.
• The booking as a form: build a "Large party booking" form under Tasks → Types with Text, Number and Yes / No fields for the questions above, filled in from the phone app. See Building custom forms.
• The extra shift and the lead: add the shift when you take the booking, and type "Party lead" in its Label. See Building the schedule.
• A note for the next manager: write the booking's headcount and allergies in the Logbook on the day, so whoever runs the shift sees it. See Manager logbook.

Mays doesn't take reservations, hold deposits or split checks: your reservation tool and your POS do that.

Your large-party checklist

• A large-party size, a maximum and the times you take them
• One booking form, read back, confirmed the day before
• Set menu, pre-order or à la carte, decided at booking
• Allergies collected ahead and asked again at the table
• One lead server, an extra shift if needed, the kitchen told early
• Orders taken, run and split by seat number
• Any service charge told at booking, printed on the menu and run through payroll as wages

Make big tables easy for everyone

Put your large-party rules where every host and server can find them, and plan the shift when you take the booking.

Start your free trial: 30 days, every module, no card needed. Next in this series: serving guests with disabilities, from the door to the table.