How to Add A Restaurant Reservation System in WordPress

Are you looking to build a restaurant website with WordPress? You’re not alone. Thousands of restaurant websites use WordPress restaurant themes to power their website. However most of those sites just display the menu and a simple contact form. In this article, we will show you how to add a restaurant reservation system in WordPress.

Note: You need to install the self-hosted WordPress to use this plugin. See the differences between WordPress.com vs WordPress.org. If you’re looking for WordPress hosting, then we recommend Bluehost or Siteground.

Video Tutorial

If you don’t like the video or need more instructions, then continue reading.

First thing you need to do is install and activate the Restaurant Reservations plugin. Upon activation, the plugin will add a new menu item labeled ‘Bookings’ in your WordPress admin bar.

Before you start configuring the plugin, you need to create a new WordPress page to handle your bookings. Go to Pages » Add New and create a new page. You can give this page any title you want. It’s important that you leave the content area empty and click on the publish button.

Once your booking page is ready, you can head over to Bookings » Settings to configure the restaurant reservations plugin.

Restaurant Reservations settings page is divided into three different sections.

On the general tab, you need to select the booking page you just created. Next, you need to select the maximum party size your restaurant can handle. You can also add a custom success message that users will see upon successful booking.

Once you are done with the settings click on the save changes button.

Add Booking Schedule and Timings

The difference between a proper restaurant reservation system and contact form is that your contact form does not allow users to choose booking time.

With Restaurant Reservation plugin, you can schedule your working hours allowing users to make their reservations accordingly.

Simply click on the Booking Schedule tab to enter booking times, schedule and exceptions. Don’t forget to click on the save changes button when you are done.

Customizing Restaurant Reservation Notifications

Restaurant Reservations comes with a built-in notification system which sends email alerts to customers and administrators about bookings.

You can customize these email notifications by visiting the plugin’s settings page and clicking on the notifications tab.

First you need to provide a reply-to name. Ideally, this should be your restaurant’s name. The plugin will automatically use your WordPress site’s admin email address as the reply-to address for outgoing emails. You can change it if you want to receive replies on a different email address.

If you want to receive new booking notifications, then check the box next to the admin notification. The plugin will use your default WordPress admin address, but you can change it to any other address you want.

You will see a number of template tags that you can use in the outgoing email templates. Each tag will display some information. For example, {user_name} tag will display the name of the user who placed the booking.

After that you will find default email messages that will be sent to users and customers. Feel free to customize these messages as needed. If you are having trouble sending email notifications, then you may want to check our guide on how to fix WordPress not sending email issue.

Displaying Restaurant Booking Form on The Front End

The plugin will automatically display the booking form on the booking page you created earlier. You can add this page to your site’s navigation menus by visiting Appearance » Menus>.

All you need to do is select the booking page from the left hand column and click on the add to menu button. The menu will appear in the right hand column.

You can drag and drop to adjust the menu location. Click on save menu button when you are done.

Here’s what the final preview of the reservations page looks like on the Twenty Fifteen Theme:

We hope this article helped you add a restaurant reservation system in WordPress. You may also want to check out our guide on how to add Google Maps in WordPress to display your restaurant location.

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