Operations

Stanchion A post, usually joined to others by a retractable belt or rope, used to mark out a physical queue pa...

Crowd control Managing how people gather, line up and move through a space so entrances, exits and walkways stay c...

Fire code occupancy The legal maximum number of occupants for a room or building, set by the local fire authority from f...

Occupancy limit The most people allowed inside a space at one time, set by the business or by law. It counts everyon...

Server section The group of tables one server is responsible for during a shift. Section sizes are set by covers a...

Seating rotation The order in which a host seats new parties across server sections, so that each server receives tab...

Quoting The act of telling a party how long they will wait when they join. Hosts quote from the wait-time es...

Staggered arrivals Giving parties different arrival or call times instead of letting everyone arrive at once, as with t...

Pacing Spacing seatings or starts so that work reaches the kitchen or staff at a steady rate, for example a...

Wait-time estimate The method of predicting how long a party will wait, typically from the parties ahead, their party s...

Abandonment rate The share of parties who join a queue but leave before being served, measured as reneged entries div...

Line of sight Whether staff and waiting parties can see the queue, the entrance and the call point from where they...

Bottleneck The step in service with the least capacity, which therefore limits throughput for the whole operati...

Buffer Spare time or capacity kept on purpose to absorb variation, such as minutes between appointments for...

Lead time How far ahead a party books, measured from the moment of booking to the reserved time. Short lead ti...

Walk-in ratio The share of parties served who arrived without a reservation, measured as walk-ins divided by all p...

Demand smoothing Moving some demand from busy times to quiet ones, through reservations, off-peak offers, staggered a...

Capacity planning Deciding how many stations, staff and seats a business needs for expected demand, hour by hour. It u...

Rush A period, such as the lunch or dinner rush, when arrivals outpace service and the queue builds quick...

Peak hour The hour of a day or week with the highest arrival rate. Staffing, capacity and quoting are planned...