Waitlist Night Log

A waitlist that runs on paper or memory produces no record, which means every argument about wait times, walkaways, and turn times is settled by gut feel. This log fixes that with seven columns and about a minute of writing per party. Fill in one row when a party joins, add the page time when you text them, and close the row with the time they were seated or removed and a short note on what happened. If your waitlist software already logs these stamps, use this sheet to spot-check its numbers on a busy night or to keep a record during an outage.

After a few nights you can pull three numbers straight off the sheet. Walkaway rate is the count of rows marked walked or no reply divided by the total rows. Quote accuracy is the actual wait (time seated minus time joined) compared with the quoted wait, row by row, which shows whether you lean short or long and by how much. Turn time comes from the gap between one party being seated and the next party of the same size taking that table. Those three figures feed the wait time quote calculator and the walkaway revenue calculator, and they are the honest starting point for any change to your hold policy or quote buffer. The first five rows below are filled in as examples; the rest are yours.