Restaurant no-shows: reminders, card holds and policies that cut them

Work on no-shows in this order. Send reminders that guests can answer with a reply, make cancelling easy by text, app and phone, refill freed tables from a waitlist, and add a card hold only on the slots you cannot refill. Keep deposits and prepaid tickets for special nights and big groups. Measure your own no-show rate first, so you know whether each step helps.

This page covers everyday tables. Large parties and private events have their own deposits, minimums and contracts, covered in our large-party booking guide. To choose or switch booking systems, see our reservation system comparison.

How common are no-shows?

OpenTable has published a figure with its method. In a June 2021 release, OpenTable reported that 28% of Americans said they had not shown up for a reservation in the past year. The figure comes from a YouGov survey OpenTable commissioned, of 1,326 US adults online on April 19 and 20, 2021, weighted to represent all US adults. It measures people who said they had missed at least one booking, so it cannot tell you what share of bookings go empty. OpenTable ran it as restaurants were recovering from COVID-19 closures.

Your own rate matters more. Count it in covers, per shift:

• No-show rate: no-show covers ÷ booked covers for that shift.
• Late-cancel rate: covers cancelled inside your policy window ÷ booked covers.
• Refill rate: covers you seated from the waitlist or walk-ins in freed tables ÷ no-show and late-cancel covers.

Here is a tracking sheet with a made-up Saturday filled in. Every figure is an example.

Line	Saturday dinner (example)
Booked covers	120
No-show covers	9
Late-cancel covers	6
No-show rate	9 ÷ 120 = 7.5 in 100 covers
Covers refilled from the waitlist or walk-ins	8
Refill rate	8 ÷ (9 + 6) = 8 of 15 empty covers
Covers lost	15 − 8 = 7

Fill in four weeks by day and shift before you change anything. If Tuesday lunch rarely loses a cover and Saturday at 7 p.m. loses a table every week, your policy should differ between them.

What does each reservation system offer?

All five systems below send reminders, take a card or fee and help refill tables. They differ in the details, drawn here from each vendor's own pages.

System	Reminders guests can answer	Card hold or no-show fee	Refilling a freed table
OpenTable	Automated confirmation and reminder texts and emails; iOS app reminders let guests confirm, cancel or change. Premium Communications, included with Pro and an add-on for Core, lets you change the wording and timing	Card holds and deposits through Stripe. For bookings staff enter themselves, such as phone bookings, the guest gets a text link to enter a card	A reservation waitlist and "Notify me" alerts for guests wanting a fully booked time, plus an online waitlist
Resy	A standard text the day before asks guests to reply 1 to confirm or 9 to cancel, with a follow-up at noon on the day if they do not reply	A cancellation fee per guest with a time window, set for a shift or for chosen tables. Staff charge it by hand from the cancelled and no-show list	Notify, a future waitlist that alerts guests by email or app when a matching table opens
SevenRooms	Pre-arrival reminders and two-way text confirmations	Card holds and cancellation fees on high-demand slots	Alerts to waitlisted guests when a slot opens, with VIPs and regulars told first if you choose
Toast Tables	Text templates for confirmations and reminders; some let guests reply 1 to confirm or 9 to cancel once you turn on auto response	A cancellation fee you can charge in full, in part or waive, up to seven days after the reservation	A waitlist that texts guests a link to check their table's expected time
Yelp Guest Manager	Automated alerts and two-way texting	Credit card holds. Staff charge an amount they choose, with a reason, from the iPad app or website. Yelp does not charge or refund guests itself	Online reservations and waitlist

Sources: OpenTable's communication tools, booking policies and reservation waitlist help; Resy's text automation, cancellation policy, fee charging and Notify articles; SevenRooms' reservations and waitlist page; Toast's guest experience and cancellation fee articles; Yelp's Guest Manager page and charging help.

Which step should you take first?

Start with the cheapest fix and add the next one only if your tracking sheet says you need it. The order is our suggestion.

1. Turn on reminders that ask for a reply. Resy says its reply-to-confirm text encourages timely cancellations so you can rebook the slot. Check the timing: on Resy, a dinner guest who booked by 3 p.m. the day before gets the confirmation text at 4 p.m. that day.
2. Make cancelling easy on every channel. OpenTable's diner help lists reasons a guest can be marked a no-show, including a cancellation call that did not reach the restaurant because the voicemail was full. Answer the phone at the times guests cancel, or send those calls somewhere that can take the cancellation.
3. Refill from a waitlist. Keep a list for fully booked nights and message it the moment a table frees up. Track the refill rate so you know what a no-show costs you.
4. Flag repeat no-shows. OpenTable says guests with several no-shows in 12 months may have their accounts temporarily restricted. Keep your own notes too, and call flagged guests to confirm.
5. Add a card hold on the slots you cannot refill. Resy lets you attach a cancellation policy to chosen tables or shifts. Apply it where your sheet shows empty tables that stay empty.
6. Use deposits or prepaid tickets for special nights, such as holidays, tasting menus and events. Our large-party guide covers deposit types and how Toast and OpenTable handle them.

What should the no-show policy say?

Put the same words on your booking page, in the confirmation and in the reminder. Here is an example to adapt. The amounts and times are made up.

We hold tables for 15 minutes past the booking time. To cancel or change, reply to your reminder text, use your confirmation link or call us by 5 p.m. the day before. For Friday and Saturday dinner we ask for a card when you book. If you cancel after 5 p.m. the day before or do not arrive, we may charge $20 per guest. We do not charge the card for bookings you cancel in time.

Before you charge anyone, decide who can approve a charge and when you waive it. Resy limits charging to users with the "Charge cancel fee" permission, and Toast can require a passcode. Toast lets you charge a fee up to seven days after the reservation, so you can review the list the next morning.

What does a card hold recover? A worked example

Using the made-up Saturday above, with a $20-per-guest fee, the answer depends on which covers you charge:

Line	Working
Every no-show and late-cancel cover	(9 + 6) × $20 = $300
No-shows only, late cancels waived	9 × $20 = $180
Only the covers you could not refill	7 × $20 = $140

Pick one rule and write it into the policy. Then compare what the fees bring in with your Saturday bookings for the four weeks before and after the change.

Where does the phone fit?

A cancellation call that nobody answers can end as a no-show, as OpenTable's diner help notes. Maple Pro books, changes and cancels reservations on OpenTable over the phone, for $350 a month billed monthly or $220 a month billed annually. The Maple OpenTable page asks you to confirm which deposit, waitlist and special-request steps your setup supports, so test a cancellation inside your policy window before you rely on it.

Published by Maple, which sells AI phone answering that books reservations on OpenTable. This AI-assisted guide combines OpenTable, Resy, SevenRooms, Toast and Yelp help and product pages and an OpenTable-commissioned YouGov survey with an original tracking sheet, policy text and worked example. The figures and policy are made up. It does not report a test of any booking system or promise a lower no-show rate.