Design restaurant software for reservations, waitlists and seating

As the product manager, design a table management system. Assume the term has its usual hospitality meaning: the software a restaurant's host stand uses during service to keep track of its tables, its reservations and its walk-in guests. ```hint Start at the host stand Picture the busiest hour of a Friday night. What does the host need to know in the few seconds before seating a party, and where does that information come from today? ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Should it serve restaurants that mostly take reservations, mostly walk-ins, or a mix of both on the same night? - Is it a standalone product, or must it work with the point-of-sale system and the online booking channels a restaurant already uses? - Which restaurants should it target first: independent full-service places, multi-location chains or high-end venues that take deposits? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - A chosen restaurant segment and the roles involved (host, manager, servers, diners), with a reason for the choice - Concrete pain points during a busy service, such as double bookings, inaccurate wait quotes, no-shows and poor table fit, each tied to a feature - A prioritized first release versus later releases, including what is deliberately left out - Practical constraints: speed during a rush, operation when the connection drops, and staying in sync with other systems - A primary success metric tied to seating capacity, with guardrails for guest experience and staff effort ### Follow-up Questions - How would you predict the wait you quote to walk-in guests, and how accurate does it need to be? - Hosts at a pilot restaurant keep going back to a paper list during the busiest hour. How would you find out why and fix it? - How would you accept bookings from third-party reservation apps without double-booking a table?