Reserve with Google puts a Reserve a table button on your restaurant’s listing in Google Search and Google Maps. Diners pick a date, time and party size without leaving Google, and the booking goes straight into NomNom.
NomNom is a Google booking partner, and you switch the button on yourself. In NomNom Web, open Settings from the account menu (top right) or the button at the bottom of the left-hand bar, choose Online Booking & Discover, and turn on Reserve with Google under RESERVE WITH GOOGLE. The phone app has it in the same place under Settings. It saves as soon as you switch it, and the change reaches Google with the overnight update.
The first time, we check that the Google listing is really yours, because anyone signing up can pick any restaurant from Google’s list. Until we have, the text under the switch says NomNom needs to confirm your Google listing. Email support@nomnom-app.net and we’ll check it for you.
This isn’t the same as a booking link on Google
You can add your NomNom booking link to your Google Business Profile yourself, today — see Show your NomNom booking page on Google. That link takes diners from Google to your own booking page. Reserve with Google is different: the whole booking happens inside Google, using your live availability.
Which venues qualify
Google only lets its partners offer the button for restaurants that genuinely take their bookings with them, so we check every venue each night. A venue needs:
- Reserve with Google switched on, and its Google listing confirmed by us (see above).
- An active NomNom account, with a subscription that hasn’t been cancelled.
- Its name and address filled in under Settings → Restaurant Details. Google uses these to find your listing, so they should match it.
- Online booking, with your booking link.
- At least 20 bookings in NomNom in the last 90 days. Upcoming bookings count too.
If a venue stops meeting any of these, it’s taken out at the next nightly update, and the button disappears once Google has caught up.
Deposits and card holds. Google’s button can’t take a card or a deposit, so with Reserve with Google on, Google bookings come in without one, even where your own booking page asks for one. See Taking Google bookings when your booking page asks for a card or deposit.
What Google shows diners
Google offers the same times your own online booking page does, up to 90 days ahead. They come from your meals, booking times, tables, turn lengths and closing dates, with your online booking rules applied, so changes you make in NomNom carry through to Google. Just before a Google booking is confirmed, NomNom checks the time is still free, so a table someone has just booked on your own page can’t be taken twice.
When a booking comes in from Google
- It’s an ordinary online booking. It lands in NomNom with a table allocated, just like one from your own booking page. A small Google G marks it as coming from Google: hover over it in NomNom Web to see Booked through Reserve with Google, and the phone app shows Booked via Google when you open it.
- Everyone is booked as adults. Google doesn’t ask about children.
- Everyone is told as usual. The guest gets your normal confirmation email and any texts you’ve switched on, and you get your usual new online booking notification. Google sends the guest its own confirmation too.
- If the guest cancels or changes it in Google, NomNom cancels the booking and frees the table, or changes it to the new time or party size as long as a table still fits.
- If you cancel it in NomNom, Google is told within about a minute, so the guest sees it’s cancelled there too.
- If you move it to a different time in NomNom, Google isn’t updated. The guest is emailed an updated confirmation, but it’s worth letting them know yourself too.
Turning it off
If you’d rather not have the button, turn off Reserve with Google in the same place. NomNom turns down new bookings from Google straight away, your venue comes off Google at the next overnight update, and the button disappears once Google has caught up, usually within a day or two. Google bookings you’ve already taken stay in your diary.
Turning it off doesn’t affect your NomNom account, your booking page, or any booking link you’ve added to your Google profile yourself. To come back, turn it on again.
Good to know
- No commission. NomNom doesn’t charge commission or a per-cover fee for bookings that come through Google.
- What Google receives. Your venue’s name, address, location, phone number and website, and the times you have tables free for each party size. It never sees your diary, or the guests who book with you in other ways.
- Google guests don’t see your booking form, so they don’t tick your terms. If you’ve set a cancellation policy, it still appears in their confirmation email.