Pub and bar websites, table bookings and events
ROISynth builds pubs and bars a website people can find when they search for tonight — the quiz, the match, the band — with table and function-room bookings that take themselves and an events list you change from behind the bar.
Wednesday, quarter past nine. The quiz has started with six teams. It used to have fourteen. The questions are as good as ever; the difference is that the poster by the door is the only place the quiz exists.
Three streets away, somebody searched for a quiz nearby at half seven, found a list with you nowhere on it, and went to the other place.
A pub’s best nights are events, and an event nobody could find is a quiet night with extra work.
Who this page is for
Pubs, bars, taprooms and inns: licensed venues whose trade is built on regular nights (quizzes, live sport, music, food nights), on walk-in custom, on tables booked for food, and on private hire of a function room. A pub with rooms shares the hotel page’s problems as well as these.
What does ROISynth build for a pub or bar?
A website built around what’s on: a dated events list you change yourself, pages written for the nights people actually search for, table bookings for food, and a private-hire enquiry form that asks the date, the numbers and what they’re celebrating before anything is booked.
It reads properly on a phone, which is what somebody standing outside deciding whether to come in is holding.
What goes wrong in a pub that doesn’t in a restaurant?
A restaurant sells the same thing every night. A pub sells a different reason to come in most nights, and each one expires. Tonight’s quiz is worth nothing tomorrow, so an events list that is a week out of date is worse than none: it tells people you have stopped.
And the most valuable booking isn’t a table. It’s the function room — the fortieth, the wake, the leaving do. Those arrive as a vague message, get answered when someone remembers, and go to whichever pub replied first.
How do bookings and enquiries reach a pub?
Three ways, each on its own clock. Tables for food are booked for tonight or tomorrow. Function rooms are asked about weeks ahead and need a conversation. And the walk-in trade comes from somebody searching for what’s on nearby.
The first two are handled here: a booking that confirms itself and reminds them the day before, and the private-hire form that gets the details before anyone has to ask. The third is about being findable, which is what the events pages are for.
How does it fit around running the bar?
Nothing here needs you during service. Bookings arrive without anyone writing them down, and the private-hire enquiry that lands at ten on a Saturday is answered then, not on Monday.
The events list is changed the way the chalkboard is: when you decide. Add the band on Tuesday and it is on the site, and on the page somebody searching for live music that weekend lands on.
What does a pub own at the end?
The site, the booking system, the events list and the list of people who have booked with you. Every account is in your name, and the code is yours.
If you ever sell the lease, the website and its bookings are an asset that goes with the business, not something locked in a supplier’s account.
What actually changes, in the order it matters to you.
- Every customer hears from you at the right moment, and nobody sends one by hand.
- Pages get written for the things people are actually searching for.
- Your page keeps posting in the weeks you'd normally go quiet.
- Your prices and photos change when you say so, without waiting on anyone.
- It reads properly on a phone, which is where most of them are.
- The pictures look like your business, not like a stock catalogue.
- A customer's history is remembered forever, so nobody re-explains anything.
- Your ads point at your street, not your country.
The audit will show you what somebody finds when they search for a quiz or the match nearby at half seven, and whether you are on it.
Questions people ask
- How do people find out what’s on this week?
- From a dated events list you change yourself, and pages written for the nights people actually search for. An events list that is a week out of date is worse than none: it tells people you have stopped.
- What happens to a private-hire enquiry that arrives on a Saturday night?
- The private-hire enquiry that lands at ten on a Saturday is answered then, not on Monday, and the form has already asked the date, the numbers and what they’re celebrating.
- Can people book a table for food online?
- Yes — a booking that confirms itself and reminds them the day before, arriving without anyone writing it down.
- Does the website go with the business if I sell the lease?
- Yes. Every account is in your name, and the code is yours, so the website and its bookings are an asset that goes with the business.
Want to talk through how this would fit your business? Message on WhatsApp, or send a message and it reaches the person who would do the work.