Pricing a chef table: fees, pairings and when the money lands

Which pricing models can a restaurant actually publish?

Three for the seat itself: a flat seat price, tiered seat prices, and per-person add-ons. A flat price is the usual answer for a set menu. Tiered works when there is a counter seat and a dining-room seat at different prices, or an early sitting cheaper than the prime one. Add-ons are where a pairing, a supplement course or a bottle for the table goes.

A fourth is available with one string attached, and a fifth is not available at all; it is cheaper to know both now. You can publish a deposit plan on a seat type — a deposit, a number of parts, the days between them — and a diner is offered it when they book, with the deposit charged then; what bindro does not do is collect the later parts, so the balance is yours to invoice. There is no roster-checked member price or automatic group rate. A members' night is a promo code you give your members; a table of ten is either its own seat type or a conversation.

• Flat — one price for one cover at a set menu.
• Tiered — counter versus room, or early versus prime sitting.
• Per-person add-ons — pairings, supplements, a bottle for the table.
• Deposit plan — publish it on the seat type; the deposit is charged at booking and the balance is yours to invoice.
• Promo codes — the honest substitute for member pricing and group rates here.

What does a service cost in platform fees?

2.5% + $0.99 per paid seat, and nothing else: no monthly fee, no setup fee, no contract, and a free dinner costs nothing at all. On a $125.00 cover that is $4.12. Across 24 covers, a $3,000.00 service pays $98.88 in platform fees.

Card processing is charged by the payment provider on top, at their rate, and is not marked up by bindro. When you compare platforms, compare platform fee plus processing plus any monthly commitment — a headline rate that excludes two of the three is not a number you can plan a menu around.

Should the guest or the restaurant absorb the fee?

Either — it is a setting, not a rebuild, and the fee itself does not change with the choice. Only which side of the sale it comes out of does. A restaurant selling a premium chef table usually absorbs it, because a round number on the menu is worth more than the fee; a community supper club usually passes it on and says so. Both are defensible. Changing it halfway through an on-sale is not.

Where does the extra revenue on a ticketed night come from?

Pairings, bought in advance. A wine flight offered as an add-on at checkout converts far better than the same flight offered at the table, because the guest is deciding on the whole evening rather than on one more thing at the end of a long day. Each add-on variant carries its own stock, so twelve flights means twelve, checked under the variant's row lock at the moment of payment.

Sales tax is calculated and held as a liability rather than mixed into your balance, so the payout figure is proceeds rather than a number you still have to do subtraction on. Gift cards behave the same way — the money sits against a liability account until somebody redeems it, which is what makes it possible to reconcile a gift card at all.

• Attach the pairing at checkout, not at the table.
• Give each add-on real stock — it is the only thing standing between you and twenty flights of a twelve-bottle wine.
• Sales tax is price-exclusive and held separately; bindro does not file returns.
• Comped seats consume a cover and write no revenue lines, so they stay out of your averages.

When does the money actually arrive?

Two days after the dinner's last sitting ends, as a single payout for the whole dinner. Ticketed dining is low risk tier, so no reserve is withheld. Bindro does not pay before delivery under any circumstances — a pre-event advance is a configuration violation platform-wide, because paying out on a dinner that has not happened is how a cancellation becomes a guest with no refund.

The practical consequence is a scheduling one: if you publish a season of six supper clubs as one dinner with six sittings, you are paid once, two days after the sixth. Publish each night separately and each night pays on its own schedule. Nothing else about the two arrangements differs.