Turn time
Turn time is the minutes from guests sitting down to the table being cleared. Lower turn time means more covers per shift, and more covers per shift means more revenue without adding seats.
What it means in operation
A 90-minute turn at a 60-seat venue produces about 60 covers per two-hour service block. A 70-minute turn at the same venue produces about 75. That is a 25 percent revenue lift from operations, not menu engineering. Turn time has three levers: speed to first order, speed to food, and speed to bill. QR ordering hits the first lever by removing the wait for a waiter to walk over with a pad. A faster KDS hits the second by surfacing tickets the moment they exist. Pay-at-the-table hits the third. On MobiTaste, the dashboard shows median turn time by daypart so owners can see which shift is leaking minutes.
Why it matters
For a venue at capacity on weekends, turn time is the only growth lever short of a renovation. Adding seats requires a build-out and a permit. Cutting 10 minutes off the turn is a workflow change. The arithmetic favors the workflow change every time. The buying decision is whether your software actually moves the lever or just reports the number. QR menus and a fast KDS move the lever. Reservation widgets and reporting dashboards report it.
Related terms
- Cover: the unit turn time sizes against.
- Table session: the session that begins and ends a turn.
- QR menu: the channel that cuts first-order wait.