Availability

Availability controls when guests can book your venue and what they can book at any given moment. You’ll find it under each venue’s Settings → Availability tab, which is split into three panels: General, Shifts and Access Rules.

Think of it as a set of layers. Your venue defaults (default duration, party sizes and so on, set under Tables) apply everywhere unless a shift or an access rule narrows or overrides them for a particular part of the week.

Tip

Every Availability panel has a Copy from another venue action. If you run a group and want a second venue to start from the same setup, copy the availability scope across and adjust - but note it replaces the destination’s existing settings, so use it on a fresh venue.

General

The General panel sets venue-wide availability rules.

Booking windows

The booking window is the span of dates a guest is allowed to book into. It has two ends:

Setting	What it does
Cutoff	How close to the booking time a guest can still book. You set a value and a unit (for example, 2 hours or 1 day before). After the cutoff the slot closes.
Start (booking horizon)	How far ahead bookings open. The default is 90 days, so guests can book any date from now up to roughly three months out.

Time periods

Time periods are named parts of the day - for example Lunch, Dinner or Late - that you can reuse elsewhere. Rather than typing start and end times into every shift or access rule, you define a time period once here and then pick it by name. This keeps your service windows consistent across the venue.

Sister venues

If your operator runs more than one venue, you can link them as sister venues. Sister venues share gift vouchers across the group, so a voucher bought at one can be redeemed at another. See Gift vouchers for how that works.

Blackout dates

Blackout dates close your venue for a date or range regardless of your normal availability - bank holidays, private hire, refurbishments and the like.

For each blackout you set:

• From and To dates
• A short description (so your team knows why)
• Which flows it blocks - you can independently switch off Guest list, Events and Reservations

Because the three flows are independent, you can, for example, close table reservations for a private event while still letting the guest list run.

Shifts

Shifts are your recurring service windows - the repeating pattern of when the venue trades across a normal week. A shift says “on these days, between these times, this is how we serve”.

Create a shift with the shift editor:

Field	What it does
Name	A label for the shift, for example Weeknight Dinner or Weekend Late.
Schedule	A start and end date bounding when the shift is active (leave open-ended for an ongoing shift).
Days	Day tiles - pick the days of the week the shift runs.
Times	Either enter custom start/end times, or select a time period you defined under General.

A shift can also carry overrides that apply only while it’s running:

• Party overrides - different minimum/maximum party sizes for this shift.
• Duration override - a different default booking length for this shift.
• Payment (policy) override - apply a specific payment policy during this shift, for example requiring a deposit hold on busy weekend nights only.

Where a shift sets an override, it takes precedence over your venue defaults for the times it covers. Where it sets nothing, the venue defaults still apply.

Access Rules

Access Rules are the most granular layer. Each rule is a per-slot definition of what a guest can book at a specific time, and it’s what appears to guests as a bookable option.

Every access rule has a type:

Type	Used for
Table Reservation	A bookable table slot - drives your reservations floor.
Guest List	A guest-list slot - a name-on-the-list entry rather than a table.

For each rule you configure:

Setting	What it does
Name	Internal name for the rule.
Schedule / days / times	When the rule is active (as with shifts, days of the week and a time window).
Guest-Facing Display	The title, description and image guests see for this option in the booking wizard and widgets.
Hide from app	Keep the rule live but hidden from the guest app - handy for private or link-only availability.
Access Profile	A reference to a reusable Table or Guest List access profile that supplies the detailed rules - party sizes, deposits, pricing, policies, capacity, admission rules and so on.

Note

Access rules point at an access profile rather than holding all their settings inline. Build the profile once, then attach it to as many rules as you like - change the profile and every rule using it updates.

Pricing and deposits

For a Table Reservation rule, linking a price list to the rule is what drives deposit card holds at booking time. See Pricing and Deposits & card holds.

How the layers fit together

• Venue defaults apply everywhere as a baseline.
• Shifts define your recurring service windows and can override party size, duration and payment policy for the times they cover.
• Access rules define the specific bookable options within those windows, each backed by an access profile, and control exactly what guests see and can book slot by slot.

Set your defaults first, shape the week with shifts, then expose bookable options with access rules.