When it comes to assigning guests their seats and keeping track of available tables, paper-based seat mapping may look elegant but can add a significant amount of chaos to the operations of any casual or fine dining restaurant.

Such customer service and employee workflow issues can be compounded for a high volume establishment during the peak lunch and dinner hours.

These were some of the concerns of Great American Restaurants, the Washington, D.C.-based operator whose eight eateries include Mike’s American Grill, Artie’s, Silverado, Sweet Water Tavern, Best Buns Bread Co., Carlyle, and its newest concept, Coastal Flats, which opened last year in Fairfax, Va. On average, its restaurants generate annual revenues per unit of about $8.5 million.

Great American Restaurants (GAR) manager of host operations, Colleen Sisk, who has been with the operator for more than eight years, had a firsthand look at some of the strife that occurred at the hostess stands. “With the paper lists, it became very hard to estimate when the dining room was full and how long we should quote customers on wait times, even for those customers who had utilized our call-ahead seating service. We didn’t really know when tables would turn,” she recalls. Plus, manual means made it extremely difficult to rotate servers to fairly distribute the workload.

Earlier this year, GAR recognized that it needed a proven table management system that could give its front-of-the-house managers and employees 360- degree views of the dining room. That’s when the operator sought the ProHost system.

Perhaps the most important attribute of the ProHost solution is that it gives GAR a customized, color-coded display, allowing hostesses to provide guests with accurate wait times based on up-to-the-minute seating trends and table turns. This feature, which ProHost dubs AccuQuote®, has proven to fortify customer service by accurately quoting and reducing walkouts.

“We now have actual running seat times so we can quote guests accurately. Also, knowing precisely when tables become available allows us to better manage workflow and even add table turns to our late night business. Plus, there’s no need for hostesses to walk the floor or constantly stare at floor plans, which means they have more face time with guests,” Sisk states.

GAR began its ProHost rollout with its highest-volume units: the new Coastal Flats, the three Sweetwater Taverns, Carlyle, and Mike’s “American.” The first installation occurred this past April, while five others were installed this past October. Sisk maintains that she is almost certain that ProHost will be added to the company’s remaining restaurants.

GAR’s typical ProHost setup consists of five terminals at the hostess stands. The application provides complete reporting capabilities, eliminating the need for paper binders, and captures data so that management can understand how table-seating information can provide meaningful decision-support data. It also allows GAR to monitor performance benchmarks and even reveal new opportunities, as Sisk explained.

“This past Mother’s Day, we wanted to know what the sizes of parties were and what times of the day were busiest. Now, we have the right data based on what actually happened, not what we guessed, and that allows us to systematically staff for spikes on a year-to-year basis.”

The ProHost system has also streamlined GAR’s thriving call-ahead service, which allows customers to make reservations via the phone. While it is a separate list from GAR’s walk-in business, Sisk noted that “ProHost figured out a way to integrate both lists into one. Now it’s totally paperless,” she jubilantly adds.

The ability to add flexible features and options was also a hit with GAR. For example, Sisk noted that ProHost responded quickly to several customization requests, like a built-in calculator in the application that automatically processes seat times and integrates them on the coordinator screen. “ProHost was very responsive when it came to tweaking the solution on request. A product can be great, but that’s less than half of the equation. We placed a great amount of weight on post-sales support, and responsiveness from ProHost to date has been outstanding,” she comments.

As for the future, Great American is holding discussions with ProHost to integrate the individual table seating systems at each of the restaurants together through broadband connections, an initiative that Sisk says could happen by the end of 2005.

“That will be amazing because if someone calls ahead at one of our restaurants and we’re totally booked, the hostess will automatically be able to check one of our other restaurants that are only a few miles away,” she envisions. For example, GAR’s Sweetwater Tavern in Merrifield is less than four miles from the company’s Artie’s and Silverado concepts. “We’ll be able to add their names to the wait list so the guest doesn’t have to make another phone call and remains loyal to the GAR family of restaurants,” Sisk adds.

And focusing on repeat customers is hospitality at its highest factor. “That’s our new focal point now, and the ProHost system is allowing us to not only focus on building repeat business but also on ‘wowing’ customers with automated service,” she says.