A table is not ready the moment a party gets up. Somebody has to clear it, wipe it down and lay it again. Table turn time tells NomNom how long that takes, so it stops offering the table until it is ready.
Your guests never see it. Their booking still ends when you said it ends: the same time appears in their confirmation email, on your booking page and in Reserve with Google. Only the table is held for longer.
Set a turn time for a meal
Open Configuration, choose Meals and pick the meal. In Details, next to Default duration, use the Table turn time buttons. Each press adds or takes off 5 minutes, up to 4 hours. None means no turn time, which is how every meal starts.
Each area has its own copy of a meal, so set the turn time in each area where you serve it.
Set a turn time for an event
Open Configuration, choose Events and edit the event. Table turn time sits under Duration and Max guests per area. For an event running in several areas, it applies to every area.
On the phone app, the same setting appears as a Table turn time row in the meal and event settings, just below the duration.
Bookings you have already taken
Every booking remembers the turn time it was made with, just as it remembers its length, so changing the setting never quietly re-times bookings you have already taken. Instead, when you save a new turn time and there are upcoming bookings for that meal or event, NomNom asks whether to apply it to them.
Choose Apply and every upcoming booking gets the new turn time, except where it would run into the next booking on the same table. Those are left as they are and listed so you can move them yourself. Choose Not now and only new bookings use it.
What you see on the reservation chart
After each booking the chart shows a pale striped block with a cleaning icon: that is the table being reset. There is nothing to click; it simply shows when the table is not available, so you can see why a time is not being offered.
Good to know
- Staff can still double up if they need to. If you move a booking onto a table while it is being reset, NomNom tells you, and you can choose to assign it anyway, as with any other clash.
- Editing a booking keeps its turn time. Changing the time, party size or notes keeps the turn time it was made with. Moving it to another meal, area or date gives it that meal’s turn time.
- Parties that leave early. When you mark a booking as Departed, the table becomes free once the turn time after they left has passed.
- Late bookings. A booking that runs past midnight, turn time included, also holds its table into the next morning.
- Online bookings and holds use the same turn time, so a guest part-way through booking online is never given a table that is still being reset.