The day usually starts around 8.30 am with a cup of coffee and a read-through of the Reception and Kitchen reports from the previous night.  We also update the birthday list.

At 9.00am, incoming calls begin and usually it is quite busy until 10.00 am, with calls regarding bookings, lost property and confirmations.

With one person handling emails and two on calls, the morning usually flies by very fast.   Once we get to 10.00 am, we begin confirming reservations for the day ahead.  Once that is done we start on next day.

We are usually fully booked 2 to 3 weeks in advance for times between 7.30am - 9.30am for breakfast, lunch is 12.00pm - 2.00pm and then dinner 7.00pm - 9.00pm; these times are by far the most popular with the majority of people.  During the weekend brunch is very popular, as is afternoon tea.  You can literally hear the sheer terror in someone’s voice when you let them know we are fully booked.

Reservations spend a lot of time liaising with reception during the day, both cancelling the bookings and making amendments.
At around 3.00pm, the calls generally start to die down and a little bit of calm restores itself within the office, the confirmations are complete and other procedures including Pre-Pay’s and reports get done.

Usually at this time Matthew comes in to allocate the night ahead and anyone on the waiting list will be called to let them know whether they have a table or not.

At 5.20pm, the emails are counted.   We usually get between 125 - 200 a day and we generally log from 600 to 800 telephone calls per day.  We then write up the report for the day on the intranet.

Reservations close at 8.00pm

By Ursula McCarthy
March 2011