Disable online reservations for a day

Stop accepting online reservations and inform your guests with a message in the widget

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Written by Operations
Updated this week

Do you want to close your restaurant for online reservations for the rest of the day? Or maybe you want to inform your guests about special opening hours in your reservation widget? 

The status of the day pop-up makes both possible in a few seconds. Quickly close your restaurant for reservations and show your guests a custom message.

Change your status of the day

At the bottom of the overview, you now find three different status options for your restaurant.

  • Open. You are open for reservations and guests can book online.

  • Full. Your restaurant is fully booked and guests can not book online anymore. Well done, you run a full house!

  • Closed. Your restaurant is closed for online reservations.

Want to change the status? 

  • Simply click on the status, at the bottom of the overview. 

  • In the pop-up, choose if you want to be open or closed for online reservations.

Add a message to show to your guests

Do you want to inform guests about special opening hours, vacation days, or simply the reason why you are closed for reservations for the day? Compose a message and your guest will see it in the reservation widget.

You can choose between three different messages:

  • No message. No message is shown to your guests.

  • Fully booked. This is your standard Fully booked text. 

  • Custom. You can freely type a message here.

  • If you set your restaurant to Closed, but you have reservations on this day, the Fully Booked message is automatically selected. You cannot change the Fully Booked message in the overview. You can change this message under Settings > Setup > Reservations > Booked text.

  • If you set your restaurant to Closed, but you have no reservations on this day, the Closed message is automatically selected. You cannot change the Closed message in the overview. You can change this message under Settings > Setup > Reservations > Closed text.

Set an area limit

Want to allow online reservations but want to limit the number of guests who can be in an area at the same time. Then click on the 'Open' status at the bottom right and adjust the limits under the 'Area limits' heading.

For example, do you always want to have 20 guests in your 'Restaurant' area on a given day? Then set the area limit for the 'Restaurant' are to 20. This is not to be confused with the limits you set in your default settings or shift settings, for example. If you enter '20' under area limits and there are currently 20 guests in the area 'Restaurant', but 2 guests leave, there is room for 2 new guests. This option was used a lot during COVID-19, when there was a max number of guests allowed in a restaurant.

Do you want to change the color of your calendar message?

By default, your messages in the widget will be shown in grey.

  • Change the color by clicking on the little grey box with the red stripe.

  • Choose a color for your message.

This is how your guests will see your calendar message in the widget, once they click on it.

Closing the restaurant for several days & adding messages for several days

The status of the day pop-up is meant for individual days. If you want to close your restaurant for several days or add calendar messages for several days you can do this in the shift settings.

  • In Formitable, go to Settings > Shifts.

  • In the top menu, select Closed & special days.

  • Click on the blue button marked with + Days.

  • Select the time period when you want to close your restaurant and under "Allow online reservations?" and possibly under "Allow takeaway orders?" click Closed. Again, it is possible to add a calendar message here and click 'Apply'.

Post a calendar message on a day that your restaurant is open

If you are not closed but still want to post a calendar message in your widget, follow the steps as mentioned above. The only difference is that you leave "Allow online reservations?" and possibly "Allow takeaway orders?" set to Open.

Next, type your calendar message and click 'Apply'.

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