How do I set my opening hours?

Set your timezone, weekly opening hours, a daily break if you close between services, and separate hours for when customers can book online.

You set your opening hours in Settings → Venue → Hours — the page is called Hours & availability. 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.

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 specific date's special hours 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, a card appears called While you're closed for 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.

Online booking hours (optional)

By default, online bookings follow your standard operating hours. To accept online bookings during a narrower window — say you open at 9am but only take bookings from 11am:

Custom hours here only narrow your standard operating hours, and only for online bookings — staff can still book any time you're open. Setting a window that starts before you open or ends after you close makes no difference: customers are never offered a time outside your opening hours.

Drinks-only online booking hours (optional)

If you've turned on Food & drinks-only bookings (Settings → Booking rules), a third card appears here: Drinks-only online booking hours. It works exactly like the online booking hours card, but applies only to drinks-only bookings — handy when the kitchen closes before the bar. A day left as Same as food hours simply follows your online booking hours above.

Food bookings keep using your online booking hours; your opening hours, special dates, seasonal hours and blocked dates are shared by both booking types.

How the hours layers stack

The order of precedence is: special opening hours (a specific date, Plus and above) override seasonal hours (a date range, Plus and above), which override your standard operating hours. Online booking blocked 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? · How far ahead (and how late) can customers book? · Why does my booking page show no available times?