In this episode of the PAX Hospitality Podcast, Leon Kennedy sits down with our very own guest services and reservation specialist Loren Daniels to unpack one deceptively simple question: how easy is it to book your restaurant? Sparked by Leon’s recent ABC interview and the flood of operator questions that followed, the pair dig into why “reservation strategy” isn’t a nice-to-have—it’s a revenue lever that can move the needle in days, not months.Loren breaks reservation strategy down into something ultra-practical: unblocking the digital entrance to your venue. From clunky, multi-screen booking journeys and rigid policies to under-used Google Reserve and out-of-date websites, she shows how friction at the top of the funnel quietly kills trade. They explore how availability settings, table joins, party-size rules and scare-off factors on menus (like obscure ingredients or unclear dietary options) can make guests bounce before they ever walk in the door.The conversation finishes with a playbook any operator can start on today. Loren spells out simple user-testing (“get your mum to make a booking”), daily reservation checklists, realistic policies and multi-channel contact options that actually get answered. Her big message: you don’t need to overhaul your whole tech stack—chip away at one per cent improvements and you’ll see more bums on seats as early as next week.Topics covered:Why “reservation strategy” is one of the fastest, highest-impact levers in a restaurant.Friction in the booking journey: access, barriers to book and clunky policy overload.The role of Google Reserve, Google listings and websites in driving (or losing) bookings.Menu “scare-off factors” and clear dietary communication as part of reservation strategy.Practical systems: daily res-checklists, phones, reviews and incremental one-percenters.Plus, here are Loren's 5 do-it-today reservation strategy hacks.The PAX Hospitality Podcast is produced by PAX and Craate Creative. Support for this podcast comes from Square and Brunswick Design and Innovation. Our music is produced by Patricia Heath and Mattias Westergren. PAX acknowledges the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung people as the traditional custodians of the land on which we operate. We pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging and to all First Nations People.

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