Seat turnover
Also called: table turns · turns
Seat turnover is covers divided by seats in a service period. Two turns on a 90-seat room is 180 covers. It measures capacity utilisation, and it exists in permanent tension with average check.
Formula
Turnover = Covers ÷ Seats (per service period)
The tension: faster turns mean more covers but usually a lower check, because a table that lingers orders another round and a dessert. Slower turns mean a higher check on fewer covers. Neither is right on its own, which is exactly the argument RevPASH settles.
Worked example · The trade, priced out on a 90-seat dinner service
- Fast — 2.4 turns, $38 average check
- 216 covers · $8,208
- Slow — 1.8 turns, $52 average check
- 162 covers · $8,424
- Slower service wins by
- $216
And it does it with 54 fewer covers — less labour, less kitchen strain, less wear on the room. Turns are a means, not a goal.
When faster turns genuinely are the answer
- You're turning people away. If there's a queue, every minute a table sits idle is revenue you had demand for. This is the one case where speed is unambiguously right.
- Your check average is capped by format. A café with a $9 ticket cannot win on spend; volume is the whole model.
- The bottleneck is the table, not the kitchen. If the pass is keeping up and the room isn't, turns are the constraint worth attacking.
Related terms
RevPASH
Revenue per available seat-hour — the metric that combines how full you are with how much each guest spends.
Covers
The number of guests served in a period — the denominator behind average check, labour per cover and cost per cover.
Average check
Total sales divided by covers — the single most leveraged number in a restaurant's revenue line.