The Value of Timing Flexibility in Restaurant Reservations

Abstract

A recent paper presented and evaluated 10-integer programming models for restaurant reservations, finding that the models that pooled reservations by same-size tables were superior to models that matched reservations to specific tables. An assumption in all the models was that demand timing was inflexible and the evaluation of the models assumed that all customers arrived exactly at the designated reservation time. Although restaurant customers may have an ideal dining time, many customers have some flexibility in when they would accept a reservation. To address this, we extend the pooled-table models to allow for demand timing flexibility and evaluate the models with a range of differences between customer arrival times and their designated reservation time. With the highest flexibility in demand timing, a top-performing model increased revenue by over 21% compared with rigid demand timing. Fortunately for restaurateurs, the increased revenue came at the expense of only a small deterioration in customer service, as measured by the percentage of parties that need to wait for a table upon arrival.