Ideas and Examples

A Restaurant using Open Air Queue to its Fullest

One Business - One Line - And a Busy Parking Lot.

Quick Summary

Use this Queue to help Maximize your seating, by allowing nearby parking lots to act as overflow seating.

Here, the merchant creates and starts a queue, all customers are steered to this website to get a ticket, and they come in as called.

When indoor capacity is reached, the merchant offers the new customers a chance to be served in their vehicles, order takeout, sit outside, or simply keep waiting for an indoor seat.

The Takeaway

By keeping a safe, orderly line, going into a business, the merchant gains the ability to make better use of parking spaces near by (while also reducing the potential viral load for customers and employess).

If it's a business with a parking lot, cars beget cars. So not only should the queue keep things safer and flowing, first-come first-serve, but it will also act as a bit of an advertisement to passers-by as the parking lot (and line) fills.

An example of a small restaurant (Barlito's Taco Haus) using this to it's fullest.

In this example, Barlito's is limited to 5 tables inside, but they have use of their strip mall's entire parking lot.

  1. Barlito's starts the morning. Mary, the hostess, turns on the queue at opening.
  2. Mary sees there are 3 tickets already. Since she has room for 5 tables, she clicks 'Call Next Ticket', they walk in, and she seats group one.
    • Mary repeats that step throughout the day as new people take new tickets and as the restaurant fills and empties.

Eventually, we reach rush hour and Mary sees 12 tickets in the queue and the restaurant is full. What now?

This next step is entirely the merchant's decision, but in our example, Barlito's is taking advantage of the parking lot outside.

  1. Even though the restaurant is at capacity, Mary clicks 'Call Next Ticket' and steps outside to great the group.
  2. When they walk up, she explains that the inside is full, but the group has four options. The first three are common to restaurants: put your name on a list and we will call you when an indoor table is available; order to go; or take a seat outdoors. The fourth might be original to this pandemic. The group can eat in their car and be served there.
  3. This group decides to eat in their car, so Mary tells the wait staff which spot they are in and a waiter goes out to them as part of his round.
  4. Then Mary clicks 'Call Next Ticket' and sees what the next group wants to do. (And repeats, one a time, until everyone is taken care of.)