Questions and answers
Ticketed restaurant experiences: questions, answered
Bindro sells prepaid seats at ticketed dinners — chef tables, supper clubs and themed menus — for restaurants. A service is modelled as timed sittings with a cover count on each, guests pay in full at the moment they book, dietary and access questions are asked per guest and held as health data, a seat can be handed to another guest or deferred to a later night, and the money reaches the restaurant two days after that dinner's last sitting has ended. It costs 2.5% + $0.99 per paid seat; free dinners cost nothing.
Reviewed: 2026-08-09
What restaurants ask
How do I sell tickets to a supper club dinner?
Create the dinner, split the service into sittings, and put a cover count on each sitting. Bindro models a ticketed service as timed-slot inventory rather than one room count, so a forty-cover night becomes a six o'clock and an eight-thirty sitting that the kitchen can actually plate. Guests pick a sitting, pay in full, and each guest gets their own code. Covers move only under a row lock inside the transaction that confirms the order, so two people cannot buy the last seat in the same second.
How do I take deposits for a supper club?
You publish the plan on the seat type: the deposit as a share of the price, how many charges follow it and how far apart they fall. The diner pays the deposit at checkout, their card leaves a stored mandate, and the schedule is written and visible. Part-paid money is held off your balance until the last charge clears, so a payout can never pay you for a dinner somebody is halfway through paying for. ONE THING IS NOT AUTOMATIC AND YOU SHOULD PLAN AROUND IT: bindro does not charge the stored card for the balance. That switch is set in no environment on purpose, because a checkout happens with the diner watching and a sweep bills with nobody present, and the console says so on the form. Take the balance as you would any other payment. If the table never arrives, the deposit can be forfeited from the order once the service has been delivered — a real movement onto your balance, with the future charges cancelled in the same transaction, and the forfeit rate is on your analytics page.
How do restaurants stop no-shows on ticketed dinners?
By selling the cover rather than reserving it — the money is taken when the booking is made, so a guest who does not arrive has already paid for the food. Three things sit on top of that. A deposit plan takes a share at booking and publishes the rest as a schedule. Your published cancellation terms can keep a stated share of a late cancellation automatically, so nothing waits on you to decide it during service. And a deposit can be forfeited after the night, once the service has been delivered and nobody on the booking checked in. What none of that does is raise a NEW charge: no card is billed extra for not turning up. The platform holds the money until two days after the dinner, which is why you can be generous without being out of pocket.
How should dietary requirements be collected at booking?
Per guest, at the moment of booking, with a free-text box that opens for the answers a kitchen cannot act on without detail. Bindro asks every guest on the booking — not just the person paying — to declare dietary requirements or allergies, and a nut allergy, a shellfish allergy or "other" makes a description mandatory, because "nut allergy" alone tells a chef nothing about severity or cross-contact. The answers are classed as health data: encrypted, excluded from analytics exports and from AI context absolutely, and anonymised twelve months on. You read them back under each guest's name on the roster, and on the per-service allergen sheet, which lists every seat including the guests who stated nothing — and which asks for a fresh phone verification and records the read against your name, because that is what it costs to put health data about named people on a screen.
Where do I read what my guests told me before service?
On the allergen sheet for that sitting, and on the roster, where what each guest stated is printed under their name. The sheet is the one to work from, because it lists every seat in booking order — and a line for every guest who stated NOTHING, because an absent line reads as an unanswered question rather than as no requirements, and a kitchen plating twelve covers has to be able to count them. Because it is health data about named people it is gated harder than the rest of the console: an owner or a manager only, a fresh phone verification even though you are signed in, and every read recorded against your name. The same answers are in the guest CSV export under the same conditions. What has not changed is the advice: ask the question again at the table. A form is a record, not a substitute for the conversation that keeps somebody safe.
What does ticketed dining cost on bindro?
2.5% + $0.99 per paid seat. There is no monthly fee, no setup fee and no contract, and a free dinner costs nothing at all. A $125.00 cover carries $4.12 of platform fee, so a 24-cover service grossing $3,000.00 pays $98.88. Card processing is charged by the payment provider on top, at their rate, and is not marked up — when you compare platforms, compare platform fee plus processing rather than a headline rate that quietly excludes one of them.
When does a restaurant actually get paid?
Two days after the dinner's last sitting has ended, as one payout for the whole dinner. Ticketed dining sits in the low risk tier, so no reserve is held back. Two details are worth planning around: bindro never pays before delivery in any vertical — a pre-event advance is a configuration violation platform-wide — and a dinner that runs several sittings across several nights pays out once, after the final one. If you want the money from Friday on Sunday, publish Friday as its own dinner rather than as one sitting of a season.
Can I sell a wine pairing or a corkage upgrade with the seat?
Yes — as add-ons at checkout, each with its own stock. A pairing flight, a magnum for the table or a signed copy of the menu is attached to the booking and paid for before the guest arrives, priced from your catalogue rather than from anything the buyer's browser sends. Stock moves under the variant's own row lock inside the confirming transaction, so the last six pairings are sold six times and no more. Per-person add-ons are one of the three pricing models this vertical publishes, alongside flat and tiered seat prices.
Does bindro handle sales tax on a ticketed dinner?
Yes, as price-exclusive US sales tax, held as a liability rather than mixed into your balance. You set a rate on the dinner, it is applied server-side in the one money derivation both the quote and the confirmation use, it is itemised on the pay page, and it reverses tier-wise on a refund. What is paid out to you is proceeds and what is owed is owed, separately. Bindro does not file returns for you, is not a tax adviser, and does not do inclusive VAT — that is a different capability and this vertical does not claim it.
Can I sell restaurant gift cards for a chef table?
Yes, through a purchase flow addressed to the restaurant rather than to one dinner. A gift card is treated as a liability, not a discount: the money sits against a gift-card liability account until somebody redeems it, and redemption is a tender line on the order that converts liability into your proceeds and the platform fee at that moment. The code is emailed to the recipient rather than the buyer, an expired or spent card is refused at checkout with a field-level message, and a refunded mixed-tender order puts the card leg back onto the card.
A guest cannot make the fourteenth — can I move them to another night?
Yes, and on bindro that is a credit rather than a date change. You defer the booking from the orders page and the guest is emailed a code worth what they paid, spendable on any future dinner at your restaurant for a year; the value comes off your balance and sits as a liability until it is spent, so you are never paid out for a dinner nobody has eaten. Two limits to plan around: only the restaurant can start a deferral — there is no self-service "move me" button — and the original seat stays counted against that sitting, so raise the cover count by one if you want to resell it.
Can I comp a seat for a critic or a friend of the house?
Yes, and a comp is not a zero-priced sale. A comped seat consumes a cover and checks in at the door exactly like a paid one, but writes no revenue lines at all, so it is separated from revenue in every report. A table of six for a visiting chef therefore does not turn into a mysterious hole in your average spend per cover, and the kitchen still counts the right number of plates.
Can I take a booking over the phone?
Yes, from the console, through the same money path as the website. You take a hold, key the guest's answers into the same validated form the public checkout uses, and confirm the order. One thing to know before you use it for cash or a card machine sale: an order recorded as paid outside the platform has no card charge behind it, so it cannot be refunded through bindro — the provider refuses honestly rather than pretending. Money that came in through your own terminal goes back out through your own terminal.
Can I refund a guest myself?
Yes, from the console, without opening a support ticket — and the guest can refund themselves from the signed link in their confirmation email, subject to your policy and the sitting not having started. Refunds reverse in a fixed order: your proceeds first, then tax, then the platform fee, so the ledger never ends up unbalanced and you are never charged for a sale that was undone. Because the money is held until two days after the dinner, a refund before the night is straightforward — nobody has been paid out yet.
Who on my team can see what?
Roles decide, and the person on the door sees the least. A door-staff login sees a name and whether the booking admits; it does not see what anyone paid or anyone else's bookings. Owner, finance, manager, door staff, volunteer and read-only are separate roles, and permission is checked in the handler rather than by hiding a button, so a host who finds a URL for the payouts page still gets nothing back.
How does check-in work at a dinner with no scanner?
By name list, which is the primary method configured for ticketed dining. Front of house opens the roster on a phone or a tablet, finds the booking and marks the guests in; the QR code in the guest's email works too if you would rather scan. Manual check-in runs the same replay path as a door device, so first-scan-wins and the wrong-sitting guard both apply. Two things this vertical does not do: check-in needs a connection, because offline mode is not enabled here, and there is no re-entry — a seat is admitted once.
Can I run a members-only supper club with a monthly subscription?
No, and the reason is a money invariant rather than a missing screen. Subscriptions are optional for this vertical and not enabled, because payouts settle per delivered event: a monthly membership payment has no dinner to be released against, so the engine could take the money and never have grounds to pay it out. Verified member-versus-guest seat pricing is off for the same category of reason — checking a diner against a membership roster is not enabled here. A members' night today is a dinner with a promo code you give your members.
Is there a waitlist when a sitting is fully committed?
No. Waitlists are not declared for ticketed dining, so when a sitting fills, the page says "Fully committed" and stops. We would rather say that plainly than ship a form that collects hopeful email addresses and never calls anybody back. If you want to catch the overflow, publish a second sitting or a second night — that is one form and it sells covers, which a waitlist does not.
Can I export my guest list?
Yes — names, email addresses, order references, sittings and whether each guest turned up, behind a fresh verification step and written to the audit log. Repeat diners are tracked across dinners, so you can see lifetime spend and attendance for one address. What guests told you comes out with them in the guest file — the dietary and access answers included, because a pass you cannot staff from your own export is not much of an export — and in that file only: never in the answers file, never in the one-file archive, and never in an analytics export or an AI context, with no override in any vertical. It is anonymised in place twelve months after the event.
Does bindro replace my reservation system?
No, and it is not trying to. Bindro sells admission to a ticketed service — a chef table, a supper club, a themed menu — where the seat is paid for in advance and the menu is set. Ordinary reservations are explicitly out of scope for this vertical: there is no table map, no floor plan, no walk-in seating, no cover-flow view and no two-tops-versus-four-tops. Most restaurants that run ticketed dinners keep their book for the dining room and use bindro for the events.
What guests ask
What am I actually buying when I book a ticketed dinner?
One seat at one sitting, paid in full at the time of booking. Unlike a reservation, the cover is bought rather than held: the restaurant has committed the food and you have committed to the night. What the seat includes — the number of courses, whether wine is in the price, when you should arrive — is set by the restaurant on the listing itself. Each guest on the booking gets their own code, which the restaurant checks against the name list at the door.
Can I give my seat to someone else if I cannot come?
Yes, from the link in your confirmation email, with no account and no app. You pick the seat, give the new guest's name and address, and they answer the dinner's own questions themselves — their dietary requirements, not yours, because health answers are replaced rather than inherited. Their code is emailed to them and yours stops admitting the moment the handover completes, at the door and on the list. You are told it happened and are not sent their code. A seat already checked in, refunded or on a cancelled sitting cannot be handed on.
I have an allergy — how do I tell the kitchen?
Declare it on the booking form, and then tell the restaurant directly as well. The form asks every guest for dietary requirements and opens a description box for a nut allergy, a shellfish allergy or anything you choose "other" for, and that answer is held as health data — encrypted, given to the restaurant you booked with and to nobody else, and never sent to an AI model. Be aware that it reaches the restaurant as a record rather than as a message: no automated system on bindro will ever confirm that a dish is safe for you, and a set menu is a set menu. If the answer matters medically, speak to the restaurant.
Can I get a refund if my plans change?
That is the restaurant's policy, not bindro's, and your confirmation email carries a signed link to manage the booking. Where the restaurant allows it, you refund yourself before the sitting starts and the money goes back the way it came. Where it does not, the restaurant can still refund you from its own console, or offer you a credit towards another night. The platform holds the money until two days after the dinner, so an early change is nobody's cash-flow problem.
Can I change the number of guests on my booking?
Not from the booking link — contact the restaurant. Party size is asked once, when you book, and there is no self-service way to edit an answer afterwards; adding a cover means the restaurant selling you another seat, and dropping one means a refund under their policy. This is deliberate rather than an oversight: a sitting that has sold its covers cannot quietly grow by two because somebody edited a number on a form.
Will I be charged if the sitting sells out while I am paying?
No. Your seats are held while you check out, and if that hold expires the checkout stops rather than taking money for covers that are gone. Availability is re-read under a lock at the moment of payment, so the last seat at a sitting is sold exactly once — and if you lose a wine pairing between the form and the payment, you are told and the charge is unwound rather than kept.
What happens if the restaurant cancels the dinner?
You are refunded, and the platform is holding the money to do it with. Bindro does not release funds to a restaurant until two days after the dinner has actually happened — pre-event advances are forbidden platform-wide precisely so a cancelled service is a refund rather than an argument with someone who has already spent your money. A cancelled sitting also stops admitting, so nobody arrives at a dark room with a valid code.
What does bindro NOT do for a restaurant?
A capability this vertical does not declare is refused by the engine rather than quietly missing, so it is listed here rather than left to be discovered.
- Collecting the balance of a payment plan automatically — you can publish a deposit plan and the deposit is taken at checkout, but bindro does not charge the stored card for the rest of it. Off-session charging is armed by a separate switch that is set in no environment, on purpose: a checkout happens with the diner watching and a sweep bills with nobody present. Take the balance the way you take any other payment.
- A second allergy channel — the per-service allergen sheet lists every seat on a sitting with what each guest stated, including the ones who stated nothing, and the guest export carries the same answers. What bindro does not do is chase a guest who left the question blank, or replace the question asked again at the table.
- Replacing your reservation book — there is no table map, no floor plan, no walk-in seating and no cover-flow management. Bindro sells admission to a ticketed service; ordinary reservations are explicitly out of scope for this vertical.
- A waitlist when a sitting is fully committed — a waiting list is not enabled for ticketed dining, so a full sitting is full and the page says so rather than collecting addresses nobody calls back.
- Supper-club memberships and subscriptions — recurring revenue is not attached to a dinner, and payouts settle per delivered event, so the engine could take a monthly payment and have nothing to release it against. It is off on purpose.
- Member and non-member seat prices checked against a roster, and automatic group rates for a table of ten — both are optional for this vertical and neither is enabled.
- Charging a no-show after the night — nobody has their card billed for not turning up. What you can do is keep money already taken: a deposit on a payment plan can be forfeited once the service has been delivered and nobody on the booking checked in, and your published cancellation terms can keep a stated share of a late cancellation automatically. No new charge is ever raised against a card that is not present.
- Check-in with no connection, and a till at the door — offline check-in and counter sales are optional for ticketed dining and are not turned on, so the door needs a signal and a walk-up cannot be sold on the night through bindro.
- VAT and non-US tax — sales tax here is price-exclusive US sales tax; VAT is a separate capability that this vertical does not claim, and onboarding offers the United States.
What else should I read?
Ticketed restaurant experiences: the overview
Prepaid covers for chef tables and supper clubs — the seat is paid before the night.
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bindro vs OpenTable
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How to run a prepaid supper club without empty seats
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Allergies and dietary requirements at a ticketed dinner: what bindro collects, and where the kitchen reads it
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Pricing a chef table: fees, pairings and when the money lands
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Changing a booking: transfers, deferrals and the night a service is cancelled
Reviewed 2026-08-09.
Run your dinners on bindro
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