Run the pass,we'll take the bookings.

Yes. Zavo connects to the reservations systems gastropubs run — ResDiary, SevenRooms, OpenTable, and Collins — and seats guests against your live cover count, so it only offers tables you genuinely have. Every booking, change, and cancellation writes back to the book in real time, so your floor plan always reflects what's actually happening and you never double-seat a table. If you take bookings through your EPOS or keep a diary of your own, Zavo still captures each one in a clean format and delivers it to your inbox or a shared sheet. Tell us how you seat tables now and we'll set it up around your existing way of working, rather than asking your team to learn a new system mid-service.

That's exactly what it's built for. When a guest rings, Zavo takes the date, time, and party size, checks your live availability, and seats them into the right sitting — early, peak, or late — so the dining room turns the way you've planned it. It can spread bookings to fill the quieter early and late tables instead of cramming everyone into one frantic hour, hold the larger tables for groups, and note a high chair or a particular spot. The booking lands in your book instantly and the guest gets a confirmation, so nothing rests on a note surviving service. The result is a fuller, better-paced evening, because the calls that used to ring out while you plated mains now become covers on the floor.

Carefully, and only within what you've approved. Zavo answers allergen and dietary questions exactly as you've briefed it — which dishes can be adapted, what's gluten-free, how you handle nut traces — and captures any requirement against the booking so the kitchen sees it before the table arrives. Crucially, if a question goes beyond what it's been told, it doesn't guess: it takes the details and routes them straight to the kitchen for a definitive answer. That keeps you on the right side of allergen labelling rules and, more importantly, keeps guests safe. Your chef stops being pulled off the line to field the same questions, while every diner still gets an accurate answer rather than a risky one made up on the spot.

Yes, and it's one of the quickest ways to protect your margins. For the bookings you choose — large parties, weekend prime time, set menus — Zavo collects a deposit through a secure payment link rather than reading card details over the phone, so the table is genuinely held. It then sends a reminder before the date, which on its own cuts a meaningful share of no-shows. If a guest needs to cancel, you get the notice in time to re-let the table instead of losing the covers and the prep. The upshot is a reservations book you can actually trust: the kitchen orders and preps to real numbers, and a fully booked Saturday doesn't end with empty seats and wasted food.

Those are the calls Zavo is keenest to catch, because they're worth the most and the easiest to lose mid-rush. For a private-room hire, an anniversary dinner, or a thirty-cover party, it takes the full brief — covers, date, menu interest, and the occasion — and can explain your minimum spend, set-menu options, and what the room includes before passing it on. The complete enquiry, with notes, is routed straight to your manager so you can quote and confirm properly. Because it answers around the clock, the celebration someone's planning at ten at night is captured rather than lost to voicemail. For many gastropubs, winning more of these private-dining bookings is the clearest line to a return.

Yes — you decide what's worth a manager's attention. It singles out the calls that count — a large private-dining enquiry, a supplier issue, a guest with a complaint — and hands them to whoever you've named, with a brief summary attached. Routine bookings and questions are handled or logged so nobody is pulled off the floor for a table for two. You set the rules: which calls ring through immediately, which wait for a callback, and who covers what across the week. Rather than leaving a high-value enquiry in voicemail until the manager next looks, your nominated person gets a ping in seconds and can return the call before the guest has settled on where to hold their occasion.

It's designed to support your obligations, not replace your judgement. Zavo only ever states the allergen and dietary information you've signed off, so it won't improvise a claim about a dish that could put a guest at risk or land you in breach of labelling rules. Anything it isn't certain about is escalated to the kitchen rather than answered. Every call is recorded with a transcript, giving you a clear record of exactly what a guest was told — useful if a query ever needs revisiting. You stay in control of what it can and can't say, and you can update its briefing the moment a recipe or supplier changes. The aim is consistent, accurate answers that protect both your guests and your kitchen.

Yes. Conversations are encrypted both in transit and in storage, with every access controlled and recorded, and the host only shares what you've configured. Guest names, numbers, dietary notes, and booking details are handled to enterprise standards, never sold and never fed into model training for third parties. Where a deposit is taken, payment runs through a secure link, so card details never pass over the call. A complete log of each conversation is kept, so your data-protection duties are easy to evidence and you can see how a booking or query was dealt with. If you have particular requirements about how long guest and dietary data is retained, we'll set out precisely how Zavo retains and deletes it before you start, so your compliance team is comfortable from day one.

That's when it's most useful. On a full Friday or Saturday, your phone rings hardest exactly when front-of-house has the least capacity to answer it — so that's when bookings get missed. Zavo answers every one of those calls at once, with no queue and no hold music, seating guests and capturing enquiries while your team stays with the diners in the room. It carries on through the evening and long after the kitchen closes, picking up the calls that land at eleven at night when someone finally sits down to plan dinner. There's no extra cover to roster and no overtime to pay. The busier service gets, the more calls a single phone would have dropped — and the more Zavo quietly saves.

Yes. If you run a small group, Zavo can answer for each gastropub with its own reservations book, menus, sittings, and rules, while giving you one view across them all. A guest reaches a host that knows that site's covers and availability, not a generic centre that can't tell one kitchen from another. Hours, escalation contacts, and deposit policy can all be set per site. Reporting rolls up so you can compare call volumes, covers booked, and private-dining enquiries captured site by site, and see where the phone is costing trade. Whether you run one room or several, every guest is answered consistently and their booking lands with the right team — without you stitching together separate answering arrangements.

It helps in two ways that compound. First, the leaks close: the table and private-dining enquiries that used to ring out during service or after hours now get answered and booked, so a bigger share of the interest you already attract turns into covers. Second, deposits and reminders mean the bookings you take actually show up, so your real covers rise even if your enquiries don't. Most gastropubs see fewer no-shows and more covers booked by phone within the first few weeks, simply because nothing is being dropped or forgotten. We'd sooner you judged it on your own figures: Zavo records every call, booking, deposit, and lead, so the covers won and the prep saved sit in black and white beside the cost.

No — it only ever says what you've configured. Zavo works from the briefing you give it about your menus, sittings, and policies, so it won't invent a dish, quote a deposit you haven't set, or promise a table you don't have. Anything outside what it knows is taken down and passed to you rather than guessed, which matters most around allergens and pricing. You can listen back to any call, see exactly what was said, and refine its answers whenever your menu or offer changes — adding the questions your guests actually ask. The everyday enquiries get fast, accurate replies, and anything needing a chef's or manager's judgement still reaches a person, so the dining room's reputation stays in safe hands.

Yes, both. The moment a table is booked, Zavo sends a confirmation by text so the guest has the details and your book is current. It sends a reminder before the date to cut no-shows, and where you've taken a deposit it makes the terms clear up front. After a private dining or special occasion, it can follow up to capture feedback or tee up the next visit, so a one-off celebration becomes a returning booking. If a table cancels late, it can flag it so you can re-let the space. All of this runs automatically, so your covers hold firmer and your front-of-house team spends their time on the floor rather than ringing round to confirm tables the afternoon before service.

Most gastropubs are live the same day and fully tuned within a few days. There's nothing to buy and nothing to install in the kitchen. You forward your current line to Zavo, connect your reservations book, and brief it on the essentials — your sittings, your menus, your deposit and allergen policies, and how you like different enquiries handled. From the first call it answers in your house style, and you can listen back to conversations and refine its answers as your menu evolves. The technical work of wiring up your reservations system is ours to do. Most owners find the biggest task is simply writing down their own booking rules, which turns out to sharpen how the whole floor operates anyway.

That's fine — plenty of food-led pubs do. Zavo connects to the main reservations platforms out of the box, but it doesn't depend on one. If your bookings live in your EPOS or a system of your own, it can still take every reservation and enquiry, record it in a clean, organised layout, and pass it to you in whatever way suits your floor — matched up where it can be, or dropped into a shared inbox your team checks before each service — so nothing is lost and you keep control of the book. If a full two-way integration isn't available for an older tool, we'll set up the closest workable connection as part of onboarding. You're never forced to change how your gastropub runs in order to use it.