Table turn time

Table turn time is how long a party holds a table, from the moment they sit to the moment it is bussed and reset for the next guests. Multiply your seats by how many times you turn them in a service and you get your capacity for the night. A few minutes shaved off the average, or one extra turn on a Friday, flows almost entirely to the bottom line because the rent, the lights, and most of the staff are already paid for. The goal is never to rush people out; it is to remove the dead time between courses and between parties.

Turn time is one half of the equation behind RevPASH (revenue per available seat hour), the metric that combines how fast you turn tables with how much each seat earns. A fast turn at a low Average check is not automatically better than a slower, higher-spend table, which is why operators watch turn time and check average together rather than chasing speed alone. The bottlenecks are usually predictable: kitchen ticket times during the rush, and the lag between a party leaving and the table being reset and reseated.

AI helps at the edges of the turn. Reservation and waitlist systems (OpenTable, Resy, SevenRooms) pace bookings so the kitchen is not slammed and tables do not sit empty, and demand forecasting staffs the line to keep ticket times down when it matters. See AI reservations.