Troubleshoot Toast Tables when your online reservations page shows no available times, when guests cannot book online, or when the online waitlist is not working. This article walks through the most common causes and the exact settings in Toast Web to fix each one.

Applies to: Toast Tables, Toast Tables Plus, Toast Web

Permissions needed:

What you’ll accomplish: Identify why your online reservations or online waitlist link is not showing available times, not accepting bookings, or showing “Closed” — and apply the matching fix in Toast Web.

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Match your symptom to the most likely cause, then jump to the matching section for full steps.

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Before diving into a specific cause, run this short checklist. The fix for most “no available times” and “not working” reports is in one of these five places.

If all five are configured and guests still cannot book, jump to the matching section below.

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This section covers the most common reasons guests see “no available times,” cannot book online, or get a message saying the next available time is hours away. Work through the causes in order — most issues are resolved in the first three.

If the global toggle is off, no online reservations are accepted anywhere in your restaurant, even when individual schedules are configured correctly.

Expected outcome: Online reservations are accepted globally; individual schedule settings now control which times appear.

Even when global reservations are on, online reservations must be enabled on each schedule before guests can book that schedule’s times.

Expected outcome: This schedule’s available times now appear on your online reservation page.

Online reservations only appear for times that fall inside a configured shift on an active schedule. If a guest is trying to book outside your configured hours, they will see no availability.

Note: Default schedules apply whenever no other schedule is active. They do not use date-specific settings.

Expected outcome: The schedule has at least one shift that covers the requested date and time, and guests can see times during that shift on your online reservation page.

A dining area set to 0% Table availability is excluded from online reservation inventory, even when the schedule and shifts are correct.

Expected outcome: Tables in that dining area are now included in online reservation inventory.

If no individual table or combo table is configured to seat the requested party size, the guest will see no available times for that party. For example, a party of six has no availability if every table seats four or fewer and no combo table is configured.

To fix this, set up combo tables that can hold the party sizes you want to reserve. See Get Started With Toast Tables — section “Create Combo Tables for Toast Tables” — for full setup steps.

Expected outcome: At least one table or combo table is configured to seat each party size you want to allow online.

You may have a Special Date schedule, a Booking block, or both in effect for the date the guest is trying to book. Special dates override your default schedule. Booking blocks pause in-house reservations, online reservations, or the online waitlist (in any combination) for a specified date range.

To check for or adjust a Special Date schedule, navigate to Waitlist & Reservations > Schedules and review the schedules that have Manage Dates entries covering the date in question. See Toast Tables™: Schedules for setup details.

To check for or remove a Booking block, navigate to Waitlist & Reservations > Overview, look at Booking access for the day, and select Manage booking access. See Toast Tables: Set Special Dates and Block Reservations for full instructions.

Note: In the calendar view under the Overview tab, red marks a Special Date and blue marks a date where at least one booking type is blocked.

Expected outcome: The date the guest is trying to book uses either your default or intended special schedule, with no blocks preventing the booking type they need.

The Online access settings on each schedule control how far in advance — and how close to the reservation start time — guests can book online. If a guest tries to book inside or outside this window, they see “no available times” or a message that the next reservation is hours away.

Expected outcome: A guest trying to book the affected time slot now sees that time as available.

Note: Reports of “no times available within 2.5 hours” or “can’t book within 2.5 hours” are almost always caused by the minimum advance setting on this page.

Flow control caps the number of guests who can book in a given reservation increment (commonly 15 minutes). A low cap blocks large parties from booking even when tables are available.

For example, if Reservation increments is 15 minutes and Max covers of is 2, no party of more than two can book the same 15-minute slot, even if the dining room is empty.

Expected outcome: Larger parties can now book the affected times.

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This section covers the most common reasons the online waitlist will not accept guests, shows “Closed,” or shows “Sorry, we are not accepting online waitlist requests at this time.”

The online waitlist is off by default. Both the waitlist toggle and a copyable Online Waitlist link control whether guests can join from your website, a QR code, or Reserve with Google.

Expected outcome: Guests can open your Online Waitlist link and join the waitlist during your configured hours.

To use the online waitlist, you must first complete your waitlist booking settings — the hours guests can join online, your wait time estimation method, the maximum wait that auto-disables the waitlist, and the service areas or tables that are bookable online.

For full setup steps, see Get Started With Toast Tables — sections “Toast Tables Online Access,” “Wait Time Estimator,” and “Toast Tables Waitlist Policy.”

Expected outcome: Your waitlist booking settings define when guests can join, what wait time is shown, and which dining areas accept online waitlist guests.

The online waitlist shows Closed outside the service periods chosen for the online waitlist. This is the most common reason guests see “Sorry, we are not accepting online waitlist requests at this time.”

To confirm the current time falls inside an active waitlist service period, navigate to Waitlist & Reservations > Settings > Waitlist > Online access and review your waitlist hours.

Note: Always test the online waitlist within a service period chosen for the online waitlist. The guest experience will show as Closed outside of your active service periods.

Expected outcome: During an active waitlist service period, the Online Waitlist link accepts guests.

The online waitlist can be configured to automatically disable when the estimated wait exceeds a chosen amount of time. When this happens, guests see “Sorry, we are not accepting online waitlist requests” even though waitlist hours are active.

To change the limit, see Get Started With Toast Tables — section “Toast Tables Online Waitlist” — and adjust the wait-time auto-disable threshold.

Expected outcome: The online waitlist remains open until the wait reaches your updated threshold.

By default, when there is no current wait, the online waitlist link shows “No wait, come on by” and does not accept new entries. You can change this so guests can still join the waitlist when it is empty.

Expected outcome: Guests can join your online waitlist even when no one else is on it.

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Guests can’t book through Reserve with Google when the integration is still activating or when a previous provider is still sending availability to Google. The most common causes are:

You can generate a QR code from any free QR code generator using your Online Reservation link or Online Waitlist link from Toast Web. To find the links:

Paste either link into a QR code generator and add the resulting QR code to printed signage, table tents, or your website.

Holiday reservations are usually unavailable because a Special Date schedule is overriding your default schedule for that day with different hours, online access, or table availability — or because the date is included in a Booking block.

To fix this:

See Toast Tables: Set Special Dates and Block Reservations for full instructions.

Yes. The online waitlist and online reservations are controlled separately. You can keep the online waitlist on while leaving online reservations off — for example, if your restaurant only accepts walk-ins.

To disable all reservations and keep only the waitlist, use the Waitlist-Only Mode toggle. See Toast Tables FAQ — section “My restaurant doesn’t accept reservations. Can I only show the waitlist?”

To allow online reservations but accept guests through the waitlist when full, leave both online toggles on.

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