How to add a notice to your booking page
In this article
Sometimes guests need to know something before they pick a table. The parking lot is closed for the week, the kitchen is on a set menu over the holidays, there is a dress code, or you are closing for a refurbishment at the end of the month. Resos has a Booking notice field for exactly that: a short message shown to guests on your booking page, right where they start their reservation.
Where to add it
Go to Menu → Settings & add-ons → Bookings → Managing bookings, scroll to the Booking page & widget heading, and fill in the Booking notice field. Click Save at the bottom of the page.
Leaving the field empty removes the notice again, so you do not need to disable anything when the announcement is over.
What guests see
The notice appears inside the booking flow, just above the step where guests choose how many people they are. For most restaurants that is the first thing a guest sees after opening the booking page.
If you use experiences or run several locations from one account, guests pick those first, and the notice appears when they reach the people step. A guest arriving on a link that already has the party size in it starts past that step and will not see the notice.
It shows in both places guests can book:
- your Resos booking page
- the booking widget embedded on your own website
You do not have to set it twice. Both read the same field.
What to write
The notice is plain text. Links and bold text are not rendered, they show as the characters you typed. Line breaks you type in the field are kept, so a second line works, but keep the whole thing short.
It is displayed as a single centered block above the guest’s first choice, so keep it short. A long paragraph pushes the booking steps down the page and gets skipped.
Good uses:
- A temporary closure with a date. “We are closed for refurbishment from 3 to 17 March. Bookings from 18 March onwards are open as normal.”
- A holiday menu. “On 24 and 25 December we serve a set menu only.”
- Practical information. “Our parking lot is closed this month. The nearest public parking is on Main Street.”
- A heads-up about the room. “A private event is running in the back room on Friday evenings.”
Closing permanently: turn the booking page off instead
A booking notice keeps your booking page open, which is right when you are still taking reservations. If you are closing for good, or closing indefinitely, switch the page off instead: go to Menu → Settings & add-ons → Bookings → Managing bookings → New online bookings → Disable booking page & widget.
The two do not work together. Once the booking page and widget are disabled, the whole booking flow is replaced by a standard message telling guests that online booking is currently disabled and asking them to get in touch. Your booking notice is part of that flow, so it is no longer shown.
If you want guests to read your own wording about the closure, keep the booking page on and use the notice for as long as you are still accepting bookings. Switch the page off on the day you stop.
Closing for a day or a season
For a single day, a holiday, or a stretch of weeks, you do not need either setting. Mark the days closed with special opening hours, or use the close-for-today shortcut, and the dates disappear from the calendar on their own:
- Default and special opening hours for planned dates. If you run opening hours per area, the date only disappears when every bookable area is closed that day.
- Closing online bookings for the rest of the day for today.
A booking notice pairs well with either one, to explain why the dates are missing.
The other message you can customize
Just below the booking notice on the same page is Custom fully booked message. That one is shown only to guests who reach a date or area with nothing available, so it is the right place for “call us and we will do our best” rather than for general announcements.
We hope you found this guide useful. If you have any questions about your booking notice or any general questions about Resos, do not hesitate to contact us at hi@resos.com. Our support representatives are excited to offer their help!
