How do I set my opening hours?

Set your timezone, weekly opening hours and a daily break if you close between services — and where to narrow the hours customers can book online.

You set when you're open on Settings → Venue → Hours (/dashboard/settings/hours): your timezone, your weekly hours and breaks, and seasonal hours, one section under another. A special date's own hours — Christmas Day 12:00–16:00, or closed all day — are set on Settings → Bookings → Special dates, with everything else about that date; the Hours page links there. Your weekly hours are the baseline for everything: when customers can book online, when staff bookings are checked, and how the app decides you're open.

Owners, Admins and Managers can open this page.

Which of those hours customers can book online — online booking times and drinks-only online booking times — is set on Settings → Bookings → When people can book, and a date blocked for online bookings on Settings → Bookings → Special dates; the Hours page links to both.

Set your timezone

Every booking time — what customers see and what the app checks — runs in your venue's timezone.

Set your weekly hours

If a day's closing time is the same as or earlier than its opening time, you'll see the hint "Closes the next morning — is that right?". That's deliberate support for late-night venues (the day is treated as closing the next morning) — but check it isn't a typo.

Close for a break in the middle of the day

If you shut between lunch and dinner, set it once on the day itself rather than blocking out every date:

Customers can't book online during that window, and a booking that would still be sitting when the break starts isn't offered either — so if you shut at 15:00 and a booking normally runs 90 minutes, the last lunch time offered is 13:30.

Bookings already in the diary are left exactly as they are — nothing is cancelled or moved, and they still show on your screens. One thing to know: a customer holding a booking that now falls inside your new break can't change it themselves without also moving the time (they're told which hours are closed). That's the same as any other hours change — bring your closing time forward and customers with later bookings are in the same position. If you add a break over times you've already taken, it's worth a quick look at that day's diary.

Both times have to sit inside that day's opening hours with time left either side. If they don't, the break isn't applied and you'll see a warning saying so — bookings keep being taken right through it until you fix it. That's deliberate: a mistyped break should never empty your diary without telling you.

A break belongs to the day it's set on, so you can shut Monday to Friday afternoons and run straight through at the weekend. Seasonal hours and a special date's own hours (on Special dates) can each carry their own break — and because a special date replaces that day's hours completely, setting one with no break is how you open straight through for a one-off.

The waitlist during a break

As soon as you've set a break anywhere, one more setting appears at the bottom of Standard operating hours: Let customers join the waitlist during a break. Online bookings and walk-ins are always closed during a break — the waitlist is your choice.

Let customers join the waitlist during a break is on to begin with. Someone arriving at 16:30 while you're shut until 17:00 can put their name down for when you reopen, and the wait they're quoted already counts the break, so they're told 17:00 rather than "5 minutes".

Switch it off and the waitlist shuts with the kitchen: customers are told which hours you're closed and asked to try again after that, and your team can't add anyone to the waitlist either until you reopen. Choose that if there's nobody on the door while you're shut.

It's one setting for the whole venue, and it applies the same way to customers joining online, customers joining on a kiosk screen, and your own team adding someone from the dashboard.

The waitlist is Available on Complete. On other plans the setting waits under More options with a padlock ("Not on your current plan — there is no waitlist to join"), and the break's own line under each day doesn't mention the waitlist. If it was switched on before a plan change, it stays at the top with a Switch off button.

Your team on closed days and during your break

Online bookings are never taken on a day you're closed or during your break, and walk-ins are closed during your break too. Your team is only warned — they can still add a booking, after a warning that names the rule. To stop them too, switch on Also stop your team on days you're closed (a special date marked closed included) and Also stop your team during your break, at the bottom of Standard operating hours. Both are off to begin with. The break's switch appears once you've set a break anywhere. Either way, a regular booking's visit is never made on a closed day or during your break.

Online booking times

By default, online bookings follow these opening hours. To take online bookings in a narrower window — say you open at 9am but only take bookings from 11am — set Online booking times on Settings → Bookings → When people can book. "Online booking times can only narrow your opening hours — never widen them." Staff can still book any time you're open. If you offer food and drinks-only bookings separately, the same page has Drinks-only online booking times too. See When can customers book?

How the hours layers stack

Which wins: "A special date's hours beat seasonal hours, which beat your weekly hours." Special opening hours (a specific date, set on Settings → Bookings → Special dates) and seasonal hours (a date range) are Available on Plus plan and above; marking a special date closed works on every plan. A special date's hours also set its online booking times — your usual online booking times for that weekday don't apply to it — unless the date has online booking times of its own. Dates blocked for online bookings (a date's Online bookings closed on Special dates) work on every plan, sit on top of all of these, and block online bookings only.

Related: How do I set holiday hours, seasonal hours and closures? · When can customers book? · What's different about Christmas Day? (Special dates) · Why does my booking page show no available times?