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Host is the screen your team keeps open during service. It always opens on today, shows one property at a time, and holds three tabs:

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Which property it opens on

Riserva picks the location with the most reservations today — not the first one alphabetically, which used to open an empty room while the busy one sat one click away. Once someone at a host stand picks a location from the switcher, that device remembers it, so a tablet at the tasting bar stays pinned to the tasting bar. With more than one location you also get an All locations view, which aggregates arrivals, on-property parties and the waitlist across the property, naming the location on every row.
Good to know “Today” is worked out in each location’s own timezone. A Napa stand and a Loire stand can legitimately disagree about the date, and Riserva lets them.

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Moving through the day

The header has back and forward arrows and a date chip you can click to jump to any date; on any other day a Today button takes you back. The Waitlist tab is always live regardless of the date you’re viewing — walk-ins are a now thing — and says so when you’re looking at another day. Search across the top matches guest name, confirmation code, phone and email for reservations, and name or phone for waitlist parties.

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Checking guests in

Each arriving row shows the time, the guest, the party size, a Member badge where it applies, a note icon carrying their special requests, and the experience, venue and location beneath. On today’s list for one location, a Now line runs across Arriving at the current time — anyone above it is past their time. A guest holding a bill credit gets a green Credit $40 badge, and a reservation booked over capacity an Overbooked badge. A red Booked after its time badge means the guest paid after the visit had already ended; check the party in if they are here, and decide about the booking on the reservation page (move it or cancel it with a refund). Rows that involve money carry a badge — red Payment due, Partially paid or Charge failed when money is owed; blue Card on file, Charge scheduled or Charging when a saved card will pay — and, where there is something to read, a line of their own:
  • A charge-later reservation reads Charges $120.00 from Sun, Sep 20, 2026, 2:00 PM · collected within the hour · Visa •••• 4242 — it hasn’t paid yet, but it will, and there’s nothing for you to do. (Once that moment has passed the line says at the next collection run — queued: collection runs hourly, so it is waiting for the next one.)
  • One whose saved card was declined reads Payment due $120.00 — <the reason>. Click the row to see the amount owed and Collect in the party panel (below). (To take it on a card at the counter, use the Reservations tile in Shopify POS.)
Every row has one button — the party’s next step. On Arriving it is Check in; on On property it is Seat for a checked-in party and Complete for a seated one. Everything else lives in the party panel: click anywhere else on the row and it is highlighted, with a dark bar on its left edge, and the panel opens to the right of the list (under it on a narrow screen). Press Check in to check the whole party in. The party moves to On property. Any balance still waiting on a saved card is charged at the check-in, whatever the experience’s policy — you get the result right here, and a charge Shopify is still confirming shows as Charging on the reservation. For a party of two or more, Check in has an arrow beside it: the arrow opens Partial check-in…, for when only part of the party is here (see When only part of the party came). Arrived early? If the party is well ahead of their reservation — booked for tomorrow and standing here today, or hours before their time — Check in asks first, in an Early arrival window that says when they are booked for. Its main button names the slot it would move them to — for example Move to 11:00 AM and check in — and choosing it puts the reservation on that slot (the one under way, or the next one today), releases the seat they were holding later, records the visit today, and checks them in. Choosing Check in without moving keeps the original date on the books. One case never asks: a party early for the first time of the day, when the only slot a move could land on is the one they already hold — they are simply checked in where they are. If that slot is full you’re told so and can press Seat them anyway — your call, and the timeline says you made it. The guest gets no “your reservation moved” email for this; they’re standing in front of you. How early is “early” is yours to set: Settings → Reservations → Early arrivals (default 60 minutes ahead of the reservation’s time). A no-show leaves the List; if the guest turns up after all, open the reservation and press Undo no-show (its main button) to put them back under Arriving. You can also have Riserva mark parties that never arrive as no-shows by itself — a set time after their reservation, or at the end of the day — under Settings → Reservations → No-shows (off unless you turn it on). You do not have to press Complete. Once a party’s reservation has ended and a short grace period has passed (15 minutes unless you change it), Riserva marks the visit done by itself: the party leaves On property, its table shows as free on the Map, and the reservation’s history says the visit ended automatically. Once a party is running over, hovering its Running over badge says when (“Ends by itself at 2:45 PM”); before that the row keeps quiet about it. If the party is lingering, press Still here in the party panel and the end moves out by 30 minutes, as many times as you like. Press Complete to end a visit early. Under Settings → Reservations → Ending visits you can change the grace, have visits end at the end of the day instead, or have them never end by themselves.
Good to know Seat is the lifecycle step — the party has sat down. It’s separate from assigning them a specific table, which happens on the reservation’s own page (or by dragging the party on the Timeline or the Map). A tasting bar can go straight from checked in to completed without ever seating.

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The party panel

The same panel opens wherever you pick a party — a row on the List, a bar on the Timeline, a party on the Map — and it is laid out the same way every time, so the buttons are always where your hand expects them. From the top:
  1. Who — the guest’s name (with Member when it applies), the reservation code, and Close.
  2. Badges — the status (Confirmed, Checked in, Partial check-in, Seated…, each with a small progress circle: empty before arrival, full once the party is here, half while only part of it is), or a yellow Late instead once an arriving party is more than 10 minutes past its time; then any payment badge, Overbooked, and Running over (hover it for when the visit ends by itself).
  3. What to do — the next step as a dark button, at most one button beside it, and a ⋯ button holding the rest, from the most likely to the rarest, with anything red last: A completed visit has no buttons — there is nothing left to do from Host.
  4. Sections, each shown only when it has something to say:
    • Reservation — Time, Party, Experience, Where, and Notes (the guest’s special requests).
    • Guests — only while part of the party is here: “2 of 4 here”, with All here and Edit.
    • Table — only for a party on a floor-map venue: the table and how it was chosen, with the buttons to change it (see Tables).
    • Payment — the amount owed (“120.00due")with∗∗Collect∗∗,whichopensthereservation′sPaymentcard;thecharge−latersentence;andanybillcredit("Billcredit120.00 due") with **Collect**, which opens the reservation's Payment card; the charge-later sentence; and any bill credit ("Bill credit 40.00 — applied at the register”).
  5. Open reservation — the reservation’s full page.
No-show asks you to confirm before it marks the party. Checked in or seated by mistake? Walk the party one step back from the panel’s ⋯: Undo check-in (for a checked-in party) puts it back under Arriving as it was before, and Unseat (for a seated party) puts it back to checked in. A seated party goes back one step at a time — Unseat, then Undo check-in. The reservation’s history records the undo with your name. Riserva refuses to undo a check-in that already charged the guest’s saved card, or that marked the reservation’s order fulfilled, and says so; edit or cancel the reservation from its page instead.

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Adjusting a party at the door

Four booked, six arrived. Click the row, then in the party panel open ⋯ → Adjust party size, change the number, save. Riserva re-checks the change against real availability and, if it doesn’t fit, tells you why in plain language:
  • “The slot is sold out at the new size.”
  • “No table can seat a party this size at that time.”
  • “The pacing limit is reached for that window.”
  • “The new size is outside this experience’s party bounds.”
  • “A private event books the whole venue at that time.”
  • “Someone is checking out for that time right now (frees up within ~12 minutes).”
  • “The reservation’s slot is no longer on the schedule.”
Then it adds: “You can seat them anyway — host’s call.” and offers a Seat anyway button. The host’s judgement wins; the override is recorded.
Good to know Shrinking a paid party here refunds what your cancellation policy allows for the guests removed — the same answer the reservation page and the register give. Whatever the policy keeps is noted on the reservation’s history; refunding more than that is a deliberate decision you make from the reservation page, not something a host taps during a rush.

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When only part of the party came

Four booked, two here, two “on the way” — or one guest stayed home sick and nobody wants a refund. Press the arrow beside Check in and choose Partial check-in…. The window asks “How many of the party are here?” on a slider from 1 to the whole party, starting one below it; set it and press Check in. (A party that is early still gets the early-arrival question next.) The row then reads “2 of 4 here” instead of “party of 4”, and the status badge reads Partial check-in in yellow with a half-filled circle. When the others arrive, click the row and press All here in the panel’s Guests section — the row goes back to “party of 4” and the badge to Checked in. To set a different number, press Edit in that section (or ⋯ → Edit guests here, which also works after everyone arrived); the “Guests here” window has the same slider and Save. Forgot to use Partial check-in at the door? Check the party in as usual and use Edit guests here afterwards. A seated party keeps the word Seated, with the half-filled circle while not everyone came. This is a count beside the reservation, not a change to it: the party size, what was paid and any refund stay exactly as they are. Reports count the guests who came, the “arrived” figures on the Timeline and Map count the number you recorded, and the reservation’s history records each change, for example “2 of 4 guests here”. If the party really is smaller and the money should follow, that is Adjust party size (before check-in) or Edit reservation on the reservation’s page. Undo check-in clears the count.

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The walk-in waitlist

Add to waitlist takes a name, party size, phone, email, a quoted wait in minutes, and notes. (In the All-locations view it also asks which property.) Parties can also join from your storefront: with Settings → Reservations → Let guests join today’s waitlist online turned on, a guest who finds today fully booked in the booking widget can leave a name and email. Those entries arrive on this same list with a “Joined online” note — treat them like any walk-in, and keep an eye on the list during service: an online joiner who never hears back had a worse experience than one who saw no waitlist at all. Each row shows what you promised against reality — “quoted 15m · waiting 22m” — which is the number that keeps a host honest. Notify marks the party Notified and, when an email is on file, sends the Waitlist — table ready email. The button disables afterwards, and a double-press can’t email them twice. Seat converts them into a real reservation:
  1. Pick the experience (it defaults to whatever they were waiting for).
  2. Pick a venue and time from the live open slots for their party size.
  3. Seat party.
That creates a walk-in reservation through exactly the same capacity engine as an online reservation, checks it in and seats it in one motion. Hosts can seat inside the online cutoff and into members-only experiences. If nothing fits, you’ll be told which limit stopped it — “That time just sold out.”, “No table can seat this party at that time.”, “That time has reached its pacing limit.” Remove takes a party off the list when they leave.
Good to know Waitlist notifications are email only — Riserva doesn’t send text messages. If a walk-in has no email address, tell them out loud.

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When nothing is happening

  • Arriving → “No arrivals left today.”
  • On property → “No parties on property.”
  • Waitlist → “No one waiting.”

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What’s not on the Host view

  • Picking a specific table from the list — that’s on the reservation’s page (on Timeline and Map you can also drag a party to another table).
  • Cancelling — also on the reservation’s page.
  • Moving a party to another room, time or day — that’s a change to the reservation itself: Edit reservation on its page.

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Timeline and Map

Two more ways to look at the same day, next to List in the header. You can work parties from both (below); cancelling and changing a reservation’s time or experience stay on its page. Timeline lays the day out left to right, one section per venue.
  • A venue that uses a floor map gets a row per table. Each party is a bar on its table, from its start to its end; the faint stripes after it are the turn time. Parties that have no table yet sit in an Unassigned row at the top, so nobody is missed.
  • An experience with manual capacity — most tastings and tours — gets one row, with a block for each start time reading guests booked against the limit (“8 / 12”). The block fills as it sells and turns green when it is full.
  • A whole venue reservation gets one row for the room.
  • Hatched time is time nothing is scheduled. The red line is now.
  • Colours: white is arriving, yellow is late (more than 10 minutes past the time and not checked in), blue is checked in, green is seated, grey is done. A dashed outline is a suggested table; a dashed bar marked In checkout is a guest paying online right now. A red dot means payment is due.
Map shows each drawn room as it stands right now: who is seated where, which table is waiting on a late party, and when each free table’s next party is due. Drag to move around and pinch to zoom. Tastings, tours and private events that do not use tables appear as tiles beside the map, with the start time under way and the next one. Parties with no table yet sit as chips in an Unassigned strip above the room. Running over looks the same on both views: a checked-in or seated party past its reservation’s end — or past the extra time Still here gave it — gets an amber edge on its bar or table. The colour underneath keeps saying its status (blue checked in, green seated). Press Still here and the edge goes away (on the List too) until the new end passes; press Complete if they’ve left. Tap a party and the same party panel as the List opens beside the view. Tap a table (on the Map, or a table’s name on the Timeline) or a tasting or tour block and the panel first lists who is booked there — the table’s or the start time’s name, a line under it (seats, or guests booked against the limit and how many arrived), then each party with its status and time. Tap a party in that list to open its panel; ‹ with the table’s or block’s name at the top takes you back to the list. A table or block with exactly one party opens straight to that party. The venue headings’ “N guests · M arrived”, and the “arrived” figures on blocks and tiles, count the number you recorded for a party that only partly arrived. Host remembers the view you last used on each device.

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Tables: suggested, assigned, locked

On a venue that uses a floor map, every reservation has a table from the moment it is made — online, by phone or at the register.
  • Suggested (dashed outline) — Riserva picked the table. It may move it to make room for another party, so pencilling a table in never costs you a sale. Guests are not told a table.
  • Assigned (solid) — you chose it, or pressed Keep on a suggestion. Riserva works around it.
  • Locked (padlock) — assigned, and nobody changes it without unlocking it first. Use it when you have promised a guest a particular table.
Move a party by dragging it. On the Timeline, drag a party’s bar to another table’s row; on the Map, press and hold the table it is on, then drag it to another table. Only tables in the same room light up — moving a party to a different room is a change to the reservation itself, done from its page. A table too small for the party asks first; a table someone else already holds says who has it. Either way, Assign anyway goes ahead and Cancel leaves things as they were. A locked table, a finished visit and a guest still in checkout cannot be dragged, and nothing can be dragged while the Map is showing another time. Work the party from the same place. The party panel on the Timeline and Map has the same buttons as on the List — Check in (and Partial check-in…), Seat, Complete, Still here, and under ⋯ the rest — including the early-arrival question and the confirm before a No-show. Look ahead on the Map. Across the top of each room is the same hour scale as the Timeline, with a red marker on the current time. Drag the marker (or click the scale) to see the Map at another time of the day: who is booked on each table then. It is one moment for the whole Map — every room and every tile moves together. The marker turns amber, the line under it says “Showing 7:30 PM — not now”, and the room gets a dashed outline, so you always know you are not looking at the present; Back to now returns. At another time every table with a party reads Booked at this time — late, checked in, seated and running over describe the present only. The tasting and tour tiles beside the map follow the ruler too: they read At this time and Next instead of Now and Next, fill in the same grey, and drop the “arrived” count. The party panel’s Table section names the party’s table and how it was chosen — “T2 · Riserva’s pick”, “T2 · Assigned” or “T2 · Locked” — or says “No table yet”. Its buttons: Keep turns Riserva’s pick into your choice (offered while the party is still to arrive); Change (or Choose, when there is no table) opens the reservation, where you pick from the list; the padlock button locks the table, and pressing it again unlocks it. On a table you assigned, Let Riserva choose hands the choice back to Riserva, and the table becomes a suggestion again. If you take a table Riserva had pencilled for someone else, that party is moved to another table at once. Two things Riserva never does: it never moves a table you assigned, and it never moves a party that is seated (a checked-in party is moved only if it has grown too big for its table). From check-in on, that party’s table counts as taken even if nobody pressed Keep — giving it to someone else asks you to confirm with Assign anyway, and the dashed outline becomes solid. If a party cannot be given a table — the time is over-full — it appears in an Unassigned row at the top of its venue. More actions → Suggest tables asks Riserva to look again, for example after you free a table. What guests can book online counts assigned and locked tables, and the table of any party already checked in or seated — even one Riserva only suggested. A suggested table for a party still to arrive does not block a sale; Riserva moves it instead. Riserva also checks the whole day before taking an online reservation, and doesn’t offer a time when no arrangement of the tables could seat that party alongside everyone already booked.

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The day sheet and the printed Timeline

Print timeline (More actions) prints the Timeline for the day you are looking at: each room on its own pages, a few hours per page so names stay readable, each party a numbered bar with a key underneath giving time, table and status. It prints well in black and white. It is for staff who roam the floor without a screen. The day sheet below stays the list form.

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The day sheet

Under More actions in the header, next to the location picker:
  • Print day sheet — the paper the stand actually uses: a masthead with the day’s counts (reservations, covers, large parties), then every arrival in time order with guest, phone, party, experience and venue, tables, status, payment state (an unpaid table is worth knowing before they sit), and notes (requests, intake answers, add-ons, staff notes). It opens print-ready in a new tab.
  • Export day — the same service day as a CSV, for sharing or annotating.
Both cover the location and day you’re viewing; on All locations each row names its location (a Location column in the export). Cancellations are left off — a day sheet lists who is coming.
What things mean on this screen: What things mean: Host