Hospitality glossary · Service and operations
A cover is one guest served, so “we did 180 covers” means 180 people ate — not 180 tables, and not 180 bills.
In practice
Definitions are easy. What matters is how the thing behaves in a real operation, and where it tends to go wrong.
Covers are the volume measure most operations plan against: rotas, prep quantities and sales forecasts all key off expected covers per service. Divided into sales they give average spend per head, and set against labour hours they show whether the team was sized to the trade that actually walked in.
Comparing covers between sites without comparing spend per head alongside them. A site doing more covers at a lower average spend can be working considerably harder for less money.
Questions
Something here that doesn’t match what you’re seeing in your own business? That is usually worth a conversation rather than another article.
A cover is one guest served, so “we did 180 covers” means 180 people ate — not 180 tables, and not 180 bills. Covers are the volume measure most operations plan against: rotas, prep quantities and sales forecasts all key off expected covers per service. Divided into sales they give average spend per head, and set against labour hours they show whether the team was sized to the trade that actually walked in.
Comparing covers between sites without comparing spend per head alongside them. A site doing more covers at a lower average spend can be working considerably harder for less money.
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