Online reservations and a live restaurant waitlist — minus the clipboard
Tappflow combines online bookings with a live restaurant waitlist for walk-ins, all tied to the same table inventory your NFC tags run on. Guests book ahead or join the queue on their phones; you seat from one screen instead of a scribbled clipboard and a doorway full of hovering parties.
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- Online reservations with table-level control over what's bookable and when
- Walk-ins join a live queue from their phone — no clipboard, no shouted names
- One table inventory behind bookings, seating, and your NFC table service
Busy nights lose covers at the front door
The phone rings during the rush and nobody answers, so the booking goes to whoever did. Walk-ins ask 'how long?' and get a guess; twenty minutes later half of them have drifted to the place down the street without a word. The clipboard says one thing, the floor says another, and the host is shouting names over music at parties who wandered off. None of this is a staffing problem — it's an information problem, and it costs you your highest-revenue nights specifically.
Missed calls during service become missed bookings
Guests book online, any hour, without pulling staff off the floor
Walk-ins vanish after hearing a vague wait estimate
A live queue on their own phone keeps parties attached while they wait nearby
The clipboard and the floor never agree
Bookings, the queue, and table status share one screen and one table inventory
Overbooked eight-o'clocks and empty five-o'clocks
Table-level control decides exactly what's bookable, when, and for how many
One system for booked, waiting, and seated
Tappflow treats reservations and walk-ins as one flow, not two competing lists. Online bookings come in against your real table inventory — the same tables, zones, and codes your NFC tags are bound to — with table-level control so you decide which tables take reservations and which stay free for walk-ins. When the room fills, walk-in parties join a live queue from their own phones and watch their place move, which keeps them nearby instead of drifting off. Your team seats from a single screen where bookings, the queue, and table status finally agree. And because it's the same platform running your menus and table service, the guest who booked online taps the tag when they sit down and glides straight into browsing, ordering, and calling service — one continuous experience from booking to bill.
Online bookings with table-level control
Take reservations from the web around the clock, mapped to your actual table inventory rather than an abstract cover count. Decide which tables and zones are bookable, hold your best four-tops for walk-ins on Fridays, and stop the system from promising seats the floor doesn't have.
A live walk-in queue guests can trust
Walk-ins join the waitlist digitally and see a live queue position instead of a shrugged estimate. Parties stay checked in from a coffee shop next door rather than hovering at the host stand — and they stay yours instead of becoming your competitor's covers.
One table inventory across everything
The same tables with zones and codes that power your NFC table service also power bookings and the queue. When a party is seated, the flow hands off naturally: they tap the table tag, the menu opens, and service requests route to the assigned waiter — booking to bill on one platform.
Capacity that scales with your nights
Booking volume scales by plan — from around fifty reservations a month on the free tier to unlimited on Pro — so a weekend-rush café and a nightly-turn bistro both fit. Your usage is always visible, and upgrading is a plan change, not a re-platforming project.
How a Friday night runs on Tappflow
Bookings, walk-ins, and seating working as one system — here's the flow when it matters most.
Set up your bookable tables
Mark which tables and zones accept reservations, and keep the rest for walk-ins. The system books against real capacity, so the floor never gets promised twice.
Reservations arrive while you cook
Guests book online at midnight or mid-rush without anyone answering a phone. Each booking lands against a real table, visible to the whole team instantly.
Walk-ins join the live queue
Full room? Parties join the waitlist from their phones and watch their position live, so they wait nearby with confidence instead of walking away after a vague estimate.
Seat, tap, serve
You seat from one screen where bookings and the queue agree. The party taps the table tag, the menu opens in their language, and the night keeps moving.
“The parties that used to drift off after 'about twenty minutes' stay in your queue — and in your revenue.”
1
screen where bookings, the waitlist, and tables finally agree
~50
bookings a month free — scaling to unlimited on Pro
0
phone calls required for a guest to get a table
Frequently asked questions
Everything owners ask about reservations & walk-in queue before switching.
From their own phones — they join the live queue digitally and watch their position update in real time. No clipboard at the host stand, no names shouted over the room, and no party silently giving up because they had no idea how long the wait really was.
Yes — that's the point of table-level control. Bookings map to your actual table inventory, so you choose which tables and zones are reservable and which stay open for walk-ins, by day and by service. The system can't promise a table the floor doesn't have.
Seamlessly — it's the same table inventory. A booked party sits down, taps the table's NFC tag, and lands in your menu with table service ready: call waiter, request the bill, everything routed to the staff assigned to that table. Booking to bill runs on one platform.
It scales with your plan — from roughly fifty bookings a month on the free tier up to unlimited on Pro, with your usage always visible in the dashboard. See the pricing section for current limits, and the free 30-day trial lets you run real weekend services before deciding.
You can keep taking phone bookings and enter them against the same table inventory — everything ends up on one screen either way. Most restaurants find the phone quiets down naturally once guests discover they can book online in ten seconds at any hour.
Works better together
Every Tappflow feature runs on the same tags, tables, and dashboard — turn one on and the rest are a click away.
See it live at your own tables
Set up in an afternoon, test it through a real weekend service, and keep it only if your team does.
Free 30-day trial · No credit card · Cancel any time