Sample result
Reservation Campaign Builder for Restaurants
The owner asked this:"Our dining room sits half empty on weeknights and on Saturday middays. Bookings come in by WhatsApp and by phone, we have no platform and no proper book, and the main location has 22 tables."
① The book map, slot by slot
Your house has no reservation platform and this map does not need one. The occupancy below came from counting closed checks by hour over the last 8 weeks at the main location —22 tables, a 2-hour turn— and not from the feeling last Friday left behind. That is the most common trap: a slot looks slow only because nobody writes down what arrives by WhatsApp.
| Day and hour | Tables available | Occupancy | Status | Potential |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tuesday to Friday, 12:00–14:30 | 22 | 87% | Fills on its own | Out of the campaign |
| Sunday, 12:00–15:00 | 22 | 93% | Fills on its own | Out of the campaign |
| Thursday, 19:00–21:30 | 22 | 41% | Sellable | High |
| Saturday, 12:00–15:00 | 22 | 44% | Sellable | High |
| Friday, 19:00–21:30 | 22 | 63% | Sellable | Medium |
| Saturday, 19:00–21:30 | 22 | 76% | Sellable | Low |
| Tuesday and Wednesday, 19:00–21:30 | 22 | 26% | Hard | Discarded |
| Sunday, 19:00–21:00 | 22 | 19% | Hard | Discarded |
Two slots go in: Thursday night and Saturday midday. Friday and Saturday nights are ruled out because they climb on their own and a campaign would only claim tables that were coming anyway. Tuesday and Wednesday nights leave with their number in plain sight: at 26% that is six tables in the whole room, and no announcement fixes it. Tuesday-to-Friday lunch and Sunday midday stay untouched.
The ceiling comes from the floor. Of the 18 operations people, 9 hold this location and 6 work the night: two servers, a host who also runs the till, and three in the kitchen. Each server covers five tables without crossing tickets, so 10 tables out of 22 are committed to bookings and the other 12 stay open for walk-ins. Occupancy and the shift split are assumed until you check them against the tickets and the real payroll. Illustrative figures, built from the data you gave.
② Effort against revenue, by quadrant
The grid does not sort by taste: it crosses what the slot costs to run against what that slot can bill on top.
| High expected revenue | Low expected revenue | |
|---|---|---|
| Light effort (the night shift handles it) | Onto the fixed calendar. Thursday 19:00–21:30 with the house pot for two: a single preparation, 10 committed tables, and the announcement rides on the lunch check and on the own-delivery packaging. It is the only one that repeats without asking permission. | Do it, but do not call it a campaign. A Friday-night message to whoever has booked before. It costs ten minutes and adds two tables. It earns no plan and no separate measurement. |
| Heavy effort (asks for hands and setup) | It goes in, but one slot at a time. Saturday 12:00–15:00, a long table of 6 or more booked 72 hours ahead: tables are joined, the house dessert comes out (1,900 COP per person, 11,400 per table of six against 288,000 COP of sales) and what you hand over is access, not a discount. It starts once Thursday has three measured weeks behind it. | Say no. Tuesday and Wednesday nights with separate setup. At 26% that is six tables; the night shift starts paying for itself near fourteen, and the eight missing ones are not out on the street on a Tuesday. Leave it as it is. |
The judgement behind the grid, declared and arguable: one slot at a time, measured three weeks before the next one opens. Filling Saturday night is nobody's achievement; the achievement sits on Thursday at seven. The concession: today the person greeting at the door is the same one running the till, and with a dedicated host at night the bottom-left quadrant would ask for far less, so Saturday could start alongside Thursday instead of waiting three weeks.
③ The Thursday sheet, in full
Motive: house pot for two, Thursday at 7:00 p.m. It comes from one of your declared reasons for visiting —the craving for home cooking—, not from a catalogue: whoever has lunch here midweek does not want to cook on Thursday.
The finding first. Sancocho de tres carnes, as it sits on the menu, does not fit an offer: at 42,000 COP with a 15,100 cost it runs at 35.9%, above the 34% menu average and well past the 32% ceiling here. The problem there is not the offer, it is the menu price. Since the goal is to raise margin without touching menu prices, the pot was built from cost towards price.
| Item | Cost | Price | Food cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sancocho de tres carnes, menu portion | 15,100 COP | 42,000 COP | 35.9% |
| Pot for two, one single preparation | 25,400 COP | — | — |
| Rice, avocado and plantain for two | 2,800 COP | — | — |
| Two panela lemonades | 2,800 COP | — | — |
| House pot for two, complete | 31,000 COP | 98,000 COP | 31.6% |
That is 49,000 COP per person: inside the menu range (28,000 to 72,000) and above the 48,000 average check. It leaves 33,500 COP of contribution per cover against the 31,680 of a normal visit at 34%. Costing assumed until you check it on the scale. Illustrative figures.
Announcement, for the lunch check and the own-delivery insert:
Thursday, 7:00 p.m.: the sancocho de tres carnes comes to the table in the pot, for two, with rice, avocado, plantain and panela lemonade. 98,000 the pot. Ten tables only, held through the same WhatsApp you order delivery from, or by phone. Tonight you are not cooking.
Confirmation, Wednesday 7:00 p.m.:
Good evening, [name]. Tomorrow, Thursday at 7:00, we have your table for two with the house pot. Reply "coming" or "can't make it": either one helps us.
Reminder, Thursday 4:00 p.m.:
[name], we are expecting you today at 7:00. The table is held until 7:20; if something came up, tell us and we pass it to someone on the list.
The Saturday sheet is built the same way, its motive already settled above. The delivery platform stays out on purpose: nobody books a table from a delivery app, and announcing Thursday there means competing against your own dispatch.
The full example has 2 more part(s): you see them inside the library, with your account.