At eight o'clock on a Friday, the host is holding a pen, a phone and a floor plan in their head. Someone calls for a table of six, the notebook says the eight o'clock is full, and it is not: two tables were joined, a party of four cancelled on Instagram, and nobody told the front.
Restaurants do not lose reservations because people are careless. They lose them because a notebook cannot represent a floor, and the floor is what you are actually selling.
A restaurant does not book time slots, it books tables
This is where generic booking software fails a restaurant immediately. It treats eight o'clock as one slot that one party takes. Your eight o'clock is not one slot, it is your entire floor: six two tops, four four tops, a bar and a terrace.
Handled properly, the first question a guest sees is the restaurant's own question, how many guests, and your real tables are the inventory behind it. Several parties book the same eight o'clock on different tables, and a couple is given a four top automatically when the two tops run out.
The no-show party of ten
Every restaurant in Lebanon has the same story: a large table booked for a Saturday, held all evening, and nobody came. That is not a small loss. It is the best table in the house on the best night of the week.
A deposit on large parties is the standard defence, and guests accept it for groups even when they would resent it for two. Through Whish, the guest sees your number and the amount, confirms they sent it, and you verify it in your own app. The booking arrives noting that they confirmed sending it.
Tip: Set the deposit threshold by party size rather than across the board. Couples book freely, groups of eight commit with money, and your Saturday stops being a gamble.
Put the menu where guests decide
Guests do not choose a restaurant from a reservation form. They choose it from photographs and a menu, and then they book. A reservation page with no menu is asking people to commit before they have any reason to.
Build your categories and dishes with prices and photos and the menu renders on the same page as the booking, so a guest reads the mezze list, sees the grill, and reserves without ever leaving for Instagram to check what you serve.
Sell the evening, not just the table
A tasting menu, a Sunday brunch, a private room, a set New Year's dinner: these are the bookings with the best margin and the ones a notebook handles worst, because they need to be explained, priced and paid for in advance.
As bookable experiences sitting beside the guest picker, they can carry their own price and their own deposit, so the guest books the thing rather than calling to ask whether you are doing it this year.
What the host actually gets
- The party size arrives in the booking notes, so nobody has to ask at the door.
- Confirmations and reminders go out on WhatsApp automatically, including the evening before.
- The guest can cancel or move their own booking inside your rules, which frees the table while you can still sell it.
- Every guest who books lands in a list with their history, so a regular is recognised rather than remembered.
Keep the phone. Just stop depending on it
Nobody is suggesting a restaurant in Beirut stops taking reservations by phone. Plenty of your best guests will always call, and they should.
The difference is that the call is now entered once into something the whole floor can see, rather than into a notebook that only the person holding the pen understands. When the host changes shift, the floor does not reset.
Doing it with Mawaeed
Choose restaurant in the setup wizard and the booking page switches to reservation mode: the guests question first, your tables as the inventory behind it, a menu manager, and experiences you can sell alongside a normal table.
Deposits run through Whish, reminders go out on WhatsApp, the page speaks English, French and Arabic, and the first 30 days are free.
Frequently asked questions
- How do online restaurant reservations work in Lebanon?
- The guest picks how many people are coming and a time, and your real tables are the inventory behind that time, so several parties can book the same evening on different tables. Confirmations and reminders go out on WhatsApp, which is where Lebanese guests actually read them.
- Can I take a deposit on large tables?
- Yes, and it is the usual defence against a no-show party. Deposits run through Whish, so the guest sees your number and the exact amount and confirms they sent it, and you verify receipt in your own app.
- Can guests see my menu before they book?
- Yes. The menu manager lets you build categories and dishes with prices and photos, and the menu board renders on the same page as the reservation, so guests read what you serve before committing to a table.
- Can I still take reservations by phone?
- Yes, and most restaurants should. The difference is that a phone booking gets entered once into a system the whole floor can see, instead of into a notebook that resets when the host changes shift.
- Can I sell a tasting menu or brunch as a bookable experience?
- Yes. Experiences sit beside the guest picker with their own price and their own deposit, so a guest books the event directly rather than calling to ask whether you are running it.
Put this into practice with Mawaeed
Free for 25 bookings a month. A polished booking page, automatic reminders, and a calendar that fills itself.