Keeping guests entertained while they wait: how to do it in your restaurant

Between taking the order and the moment the plate hits the table, most establishments have a gap of ten to twenty minutes. On a quiet Tuesday, no one notices. On a busy Saturday night, or at a table with two impatient kids, that quarter hour determines how the rest of the evening feels.

The annoying thing is that as a business owner you can do little about it. The kitchen doesn't go faster just because it's busy. What you do have control over is what a guest has to do during that time. And in practice, that matters more than the waiting time itself.

Why waiting feels longer than it is

Research on queues consistently shows the same thing: unoccupied time feels longer than occupied time. Someone who waits ten minutes with nothing to do consistently overestimates that time. Someone who has something to do during those same ten minutes underestimates it.

For a restaurant, that means something practical. You don't need to shorten the wait time to make it feel shorter. You just need to fill it.

There's another factor at play. Waiting at the start of a visit weighs heavier than waiting in the middle. Someone who just sat down has no reason yet to think things will be fine; someone who's already finished a starter waits with confidence. This is also exactly why an amuse-bouche or a piece of bread is so effective: it's not the food that helps, it's the signal that something is happening.

The three moments where it goes wrong

In practice, almost every complaint about waiting comes from one of these three:

1. Between sitting down and having the order taken. The shortest gap, but it weighs the heaviest, because this is where the guest forms their first judgment.
2. Between ordering and the first course. The longest gap and the only one where the guest genuinely has nothing to do.
3. Between clearing the main course and the bill. Commercially the most valuable moment, and at the same time the quietest.

The second gap is what this article is about, but keep the third in mind: that's where money is made or not. More on that in the article about revenue per table.

The first impression of a visit often lies more in the first ten minutes than in the first plate.

Six methods that work in practice

1. Something on the table that does something right away

A small bowl of olives, a piece of bread, an amuse-bouche from the house. Small, cheap, and it turns the moment of waiting into the start of the meal. It works mainly because it's a signal: someone is thinking of you.

2. A coloring page or puzzle booklet for kids

The classic, and for good reason. The downside is known to everyone who does it: crayons get lost, paper ends up on the floor afterward, and you have to keep restocking it. Expect five to ten minutes of attention per child.

3. Tabletop games via a QR code

The version without materials lying around. Each table gets its own QR code; the guest scans it with their own phone and plays instantly in the browser, no app needed. A round takes two to five minutes, exactly the length of the gap you want to fill. With TablePlay, guests can play alone, together on one phone, or compete against another table in the venue. See all the games available.

4. Starting a conversation instead of asking a question

"Is everything to your liking?" always gets "yes, fine" as an answer. "Have you been here before?" or "is this a special occasion?" starts a conversation, and a conversation makes the wait feel shorter without costing anything.

5. Showing something

An open kitchen, a wood-fired oven, a display case with today's catch. Someone who has something to look at doesn't get bored. This is the most expensive of the six solutions, but also the only one that works permanently.

6. Being honest about the wait time

"It'll take about twenty minutes today" does more than you'd think. Uncertainty about how long something will take weighs heavier than the duration itself. A guest who knows what to expect waits more calmly.

It differs by type of establishment

Restaurant with a kitchen that runs on time

Here the wait time is predictable: ten to twenty minutes, night after night. This is the easiest situation to fill, because you know exactly how much time you need to bridge. Choose something that can be completed within that time, so it isn't interrupted halfway through by the food.

Café where people stay a long time

At a café, it's not about a gap between two courses but about the evening itself. Here, something that can be repeated and has a competitive element works well. Table versus table or a regular quiz night fits better than a short puzzle.

Venue with many families

The wait time is heaviest here, because kids have a shorter attention span than the kitchen has speed. What matters here is variety: something that's still different after the third time. See also what parents really look for in a restaurant.

Hotel or holiday park

Guests here more often sit down for multiple evenings in a row, which changes the requirement: what's fun on night one needs to still work on night three. Repetition is the pitfall. See the page for hotels.

What it delivers

Filling wait time isn't a goal in itself. It's about what happens afterward:

• Guests stay seated longer, and those who stay longer are more likely to order something else.
• The rating of the visit goes up without anything changing about the food.
• Staff get some breathing room: less impatience at the table means fewer interruptions during the rush.
• Families are more likely to return to a venue where the kids had fun.

How to know if it's working

The temptation is strong to judge this by feel, and feel is unreliable here: a busy night always feels good. Four numbers do say something, provided you compare the same days of the week with each other.

1. The average spend per table, broken down by day of the week.
2. The share of tables that order something else after the main course.
3. The average time a table is occupied. Longer is good here, as long as you don't have a line at the door.
4. The number of reviews per week and what's mentioned in them.

Two weeks is enough to see something. If nothing moves, it's not the right solution for you, and stopping it doesn't cost you anything further either.

What you'd better not do

Two things keep coming back with venues that try it and then stop. The first is materials you have to maintain yourself: game boxes with missing pieces, broken crayons, cards that are no longer complete. The second is something that takes too long. A forty-minute board game doesn't fit in a fifteen-minute gap.

Keep it under five minutes, and make sure you don't have to set anything up yourself.

Where to start

Pick one thing and do it consistently, rather than three things halfway. If it doesn't work, you'll know within two weeks. If it does work, you'll notice it in the orders after the main course and in what guests write in their reviews.

If you want to see what tabletop games cost for a venue your size, check out the pricing. For restaurants specifically, there's a separate page on how it plays out at a restaurant.