Two pages here already deal with how a restaurant prices its back room, by minimum spend, by set menu or by a straight fee. None of them deals with the harder half, which is the dinner itself. A seated meal for twenty is a different animal from a room with a bar in it: everybody eats at the same time, nobody can move seats, and almost every decision has to be made days before anyone arrives. This page is about those decisions, in the order the restaurant will ask for them.
Ask three suppliers for a price
Rent space for dinner party: the set menu deadline is the real constraint
A group of more than about twelve almost always eats from a reduced menu, and the restaurant will want it chosen days in advance, often with each guest's choice named. That is the deadline that governs the whole booking, because it means invitations have to go out early enough to collect choices, chase the people who do not reply, and send one list back. Ask for the deadline before the deposit rather than after, and ask whether choices are per guest or per table, because the two produce completely different amounts of work for whoever is organising.
Allergens and what the kitchen has to be told, in writing
Food businesses are required to be able to tell a customer which of the regulated allergens are in a dish, and a pre-ordered group menu moves that conversation weeks earlier than usual. Collect requirements with the menu choices rather than separately, name them against the guest, and get the restaurant's confirmation back in writing rather than over the phone. Vegetarian, vegan and religious requirements are not allergens but are the ones a set menu most often has no answer for, so raise them at the same time.
The table shape decides who can talk to whom
This is the detail most often left to the restaurant and most often regretted. One long table seats the most people in the least space and gives each guest four neighbours; it also makes a speech possible and a general conversation impossible. Rounds of eight or ten do the opposite. A U shape or a horseshoe suits a dinner with a presentation at the open end and wastes floor. Ask what shapes the room can actually hold at your number before settling it, because the room usually allows fewer arrangements than the floor plan suggests.
Private room hire edinburgh: how long a seated dinner actually takes
Plan a group sitting at roughly twice the length of an ordinary dinner. Arrivals stretch, service comes in waves rather than in courses, and the gap between the main course and coffee is where the time disappears. Restaurants know this and it is why a private room is frequently let in a single named sitting with a hard finish, so the table can be turned or the staff sent home. Get the finish time in writing, ask what happens if the party overruns it, and work backwards from it when deciding what time to ask people to arrive.
Corporate dinner or a family celebration: who is paying changes the booking
A company booking and a private one behave differently at every step. A company usually wants one invoice, a purchase order, a named billing contact and a receipt that will survive an expenses check, and it can normally commit to a minimum spend without asking anyone. A family celebration usually wants to split the bill, sometimes at the table, and cannot promise a number until much closer to the day. Say which of the two you are at the first enquiry, because it changes the deposit the restaurant asks for and whether a drinks tab is offered at all.
Service charge, the drinks tab and the bill at the end
Group bookings usually carry a service charge added as a percentage, and for a pre-ordered menu it is frequently stated as compulsory rather than discretionary. Settle three things before the night: whether service is included in the per head figure or added at the end, whether drinks are on a tab with a ceiling or paid individually, and who is physically presented with the bill. A tab with an agreed ceiling and one named person to close it is what stops the awkward twenty minutes at the end of an otherwise good evening.
Dinner party venues london and private dining newcastle: what the local stock does to the seating
The size of a city's restaurant stock decides how much choice there is about the arrangement. In the largest markets there are enough rooms that the shape of the table can be a requirement rather than a hope, and enough competition that a midweek booking is negotiable. In a smaller city the workable rooms at twenty covers are countable on one hand, they are booked much further out, and the sensible approach is to fix the date and the number first and take the best arrangement on offer rather than the other way round.
Restaurants with private rooms brooklyn: a room, a screened corner and a whole floor
Three things get described as private and only one of them is. A genuine room with a door is what the word should mean. A screened or curtained corner of a trading dining room is the commonest offer, is usually cheaper, and is fine for a dinner and impossible for a speech. A whole floor or a full buyout is what a larger group ends up taking, and it is priced against what the restaurant would otherwise have earned that night. Ask which of the three is being offered and whether other diners will be within earshot, because the listing photograph will not tell you.
Bridal shower restaurants and the daytime sitting nobody competes for
Lunch is the underused end of this market. A restaurant's private room is most often empty in the middle of the day, the minimum spend attached to it is lower or absent, and staffing is easier, so a daytime booking is both cheaper and more flexible about the arrangement. For a shower, a christening lunch or a milestone birthday with older guests it is also frequently the better event. Ask specifically what the room costs at lunch rather than assuming the evening figure applies.
Restaurant hire when the group will not fit any room
Past a certain number the private room stops existing and the only honest options are a full buyout of the restaurant or a different kind of building. A buyout is quoted against a whole evening's takings and is worth asking about on the restaurant's slowest night, which is rarely the night you first wanted. The alternative is to stop looking at restaurants and look at rooms that bring catering in, where the food and the space are priced separately and the number stops being the constraint.
Questions people ask about restaurant room rental
How far in advance does the menu have to be chosen?
For a group above roughly twelve, usually several days to a fortnight, and often with each guest's choice named. That deadline rather than the booking date is what the organising actually has to work back from, because choices have to be collected and chased first. Ask for it at the enquiry stage.
Is the service charge on a group booking optional?
Frequently not. Group and pre-ordered bookings commonly carry it as a stated condition rather than as a discretionary addition at the end, and the percentage is normally on the terms rather than the menu. Read the booking form for it, and check whether the per head figure you were quoted already includes it.
What is the best table shape for a group dinner?
It depends on whether anyone is going to speak. One long table gives each guest four neighbours and makes a speech workable. Rounds of eight or ten produce much better conversation and no shared moment. Decide which the evening is for, then ask what the room can hold in that arrangement at your number.
Can numbers change after the deposit is paid?
Upwards, usually, if the room still holds them. Downwards is the expensive direction, because a minimum spend or a per head charge is normally set against the number confirmed at the menu deadline rather than the number who turn up. Confirm slightly low and add rather than the reverse.