Questions, answered

Each place's staff tap seats on a floor plan as people sit down and leave. You see those changes live, along with when the place last updated.

No. SeatMate shows what's open right now, not bookings. An open seat is a good sign, not a guarantee.

It's the last time staff changed a seat. The older it is, the more things may have changed since.

Yes. Sign in, open a full place and tap “Email me when a seat opens”. We'll email you once, the next time a seat opens in the following 12 hours.

Suggest it. We reach out to the places people ask for most.

Yes, for customers.

Create an account on the business portal, add your details, and build your floor plan. We review each business before it goes live.

One tap per change. Staff get their own invite and only see the seat screen. If nothing changes for a while, they get a reminder and can confirm seats are still accurate in one tap.

Customers who would otherwise skip a busy-looking place can see there's room. You also get analytics (page views, saves, QR scans and your busiest hours) and a printable QR sign for your door.

Cafés, coffee shops, restaurants, bakeries, food halls, bars, barbershops and bowling alleys. Bars also get pool table and darts markers that staff can mark as in use, bowling alleys show which lanes are open, and barbershops get barber chairs.