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Bookings, no-shows and functions
No-show cost calculator: what empty tables cost a venue a year, and what a deposit may lawfully be
Enter bookings, no-show rate, party size and spend to see the gross profit lost a year, what reminders would save, and whether a deposit per head is defensible.
A table of thirteen booked at lunchtime for that evening and did not arrive: the pub owner who told that story in April 2026 said what every operator says, that you cannot conjure a table of thirteen out of a Friday night. The calculator puts a yearly number on it, because the decision about reminders and deposits is a sum before it is a policy.
Free tool
No-show cost calculator: what empty tables cost a year, and what a deposit may lawfully be
Works in your browser. Nothing you type leaves this device unless you ask us to email you the result.
Count gross profit, not menu price
A no-show does not cost the menu price of the meal that was not eaten. The food and drink were not bought, or will be used tomorrow. What was lost is the gross profit on the covers, on the tables that stayed empty. The calculator therefore takes spend per head, applies your gross profit percentage, and knocks off the share of no-show tables you re-fill from walk-ins. That last figure is honest at 25% for a town-centre restaurant on a Saturday and close to zero for a country pub on a Tuesday; set it for your room.
Barclaycard's May 2023 survey put the average cost of a no-show at £89, that 60% of cancellations come with less than 24 hours' notice, and that fewer than 16% of operators recovered losses through fees. Your figure will differ from £89; the calculator shows it.
The cheaper lever is the reminder
Zonal and CGA found that 36% of diners said a reminder by text, email or app would make them more likely to honour a booking. The calculator shows what a quarter and a half off your rate is worth. For most venues it is thousands a year, and a reminder costs pennies a booking through any booking system or a text from the venue phone. Chasing unconfirmed tables the day before is the first job on the list of an AI Reservations Assistant set up by Overlyft 
for this reason.
What a deposit may lawfully be
The second lever is a deposit or a card hold, and here the law has a view. Under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 a term that requires a consumer who cancels to pay a disproportionately high sum is on the list of terms likely to be unfair, and the CMA's unfair terms guidance, updated on 22 July 2026 with new examples on cancelled bookings and deposits, is the test a card issuer or a court applies. The practical rules that follow:
- Show it before the booking is made. A charge in the small print after the table is booked is not agreed.
- Set it against your actual loss. The gross profit on a table you could not re-fill is a defensible figure. The full menu price is not, because you did not buy the food.
- Waive it when the table is re-let. If you fill the table, you have lost nothing to charge for.
- Scale it by notice. A sliding scale (nothing with 48 hours' notice, part with 24, full on the night) is easier to defend than one flat fee for all cancellations.
The calculator compares the deposit you enter with the gross profit per head and says when it is over. A deposit above the loss is the kind of charge that loses the chargeback and, in a bad week, the review. Our guide on no-show fees and the law sets out the reasoning at length.
Who to ask for a deposit
Not everyone. Parties of six and up, Friday and Saturday nights, December and set-menu events are where the loss on a no-show is large and where diners expect to be asked. A deposit on a Tuesday table for two costs more in bookings not made than it saves. The function quote maker handles the larger events, where a deposit is standard and the terms matter more.
The numbers to keep
Bookings, no-shows and late cancellations per week, by day. After a month the venue knows its rate by service rather than by feeling, and the calculator becomes a monthly check rather than a guess. A venue that cuts an 8% rate to 5% with reminders and deposits on the right nights has found a sum most pubs would call a good month.
Figures are the surveys' own; your venue's loss is whatever your bookings and your margin make it.
Short answers from this page
What do no-shows cost a restaurant?
For a venue taking 180 bookings a week with an 8% no-show rate, parties of three spending £32 a head at 65% gross profit, and a quarter of empty tables re-filled by walk-ins, the lost gross profit is £35,044 a year. That is 10.8 tables a week at £62.40 of gross profit each.
How big should a booking deposit be?
At or below the gross profit the venue would lose on the cover. At £32 a head and 65% gross profit that is £20.80, so a £10-a-head deposit covers 48% of the loss and is easy to defend; £30 a head is more than the loss and reads as a penalty. Return it if the table is re-filled.
Source: CMA unfair contract terms guidance
How do reminders affect no-shows?
They reduce them, but by how much depends on the venue; published figures vary and most come from booking-system vendors. On the example above, cutting no-shows by a quarter is worth about £8,761 a year and by half about £17,522. A reminder with a one-tap cancel link also frees tables early enough to re-fill.
Where this comes from: Barclaycard Payments survey, May 2023 (2,000 diners, 200 restaurant owners), reported by The Caterer; Zonal and CGA no-show research, September 2021; CMA unfair contract terms guidance (CMA37, updated 22 July 2026); all read 2026-10-01. Our test is in tests/covers/tools-check.txt.
AEO Lookup editorial team
We write practical guides for people who run small UK firms, and we check every fact against its source on the date shown. Read how we review, or tell us if something has changed.
