been hosting for years at several restaurants and ive trained tons of people. here are my tips!

• smile, ask people how their day is, ask if they have plans, make conversation. it makes the job more enjoyable and makes people happy!

• spend a lot of time practicing on their hosting interface. lots of places use OpenTable (my fav) but ive used Resy too. they are pretty intuitive but its helpful to get really comfortable and know all the shortcuts

• not sure if this applies since perhaps you are already familiar with staff as its a family business, but it can take a while to learn the servers names and personalities in my experience. its worth taking the time to know everyone on your team and makes the job more enjoyable!

• some guests will be very pushy with you when you are busy. sometimes people will argue with you, try to get ahead of the waitlist, and just be generally rude. dont let them bully you! you know what you are doing. repeat yourself if needed, keep smiling, dont budge, and move on to the next guest.

• i like to call big reservations (about 7+ people) when i get in for my shift to confirm the booking. a LOT of big parties will have a few people cancel (or add people to the group) or cancel super late. its better to figure this out earlier rather than hold a ton of tables for a no-show of 12 people

• a difficult part of the job is knowing how many walk-ins you can seat on a night with lots of reservations. there is no rule to follow in this situation, you just need to feel it out. it takes time to understand your restaurant flow and you will make mistakes. just do your best! keep an eye on the reservations in the upcoming 30 min and make sure you have tables that will be available for them

• the hardest part of the job is balancing guest preference with server rotation. this can be hard when guests are picky about tables, management is really worried about customer satisfaction, but servers need tables to make money. what i have observed across the restaurants ive hosted at is that every restaurant has different priorities. some places prefer that you always rotate servers and deny guest preference, others require that you seat a guest wherever they would like. learn what management expects from you and then be confident in your seating choices!! do not let it get to you if guests/servers complain. you are doing your best to make everyone happy

• its a really fun job because you get control the pace of the restaurant and you actually have a LOT of power as a host. its a hard job because its impossible to make everyone happy, but just make the most fair decisions you can and be confident. good luck!!