Gatherings: Private Hire and Large Group Bookings

A party of fourteen for a birthday, a christening lunch, a company dinner, a wake. These are the bookings worth the most and the ones a booking form handles worst, because they are a conversation before they are a reservation.

Gatherings is that conversation, ending in a held table and a paid deposit.

The enquiry, and the quote back

A customer sends what they want — date, numbers, occasion, budget — and you answer with a quote: your date, your time, your price per head, your terms. They accept it, counter it, or you send a revised one.

That back-and-forth is the whole product. A form that only takes an enquiry leaves you on the phone; a form that only takes a booking gets the numbers wrong. Only one quote can be open on a booking at a time, so there is never a question of which offer stands.

When a quote is accepted the booking is confirmed and a reservation is created on your floor automatically. It stops being an email thread and becomes a table.

Deposits, and splitting them

A large booking without a deposit is the single most expensive no-show you can take. Ask for one and it is charged through Stripe to your own account, at 4.5% commission.

That rate is different from a reservation deposit, which is 0%, and the difference is honest: a reservation deposit is a card held against a table you were going to give away anyway, while a gathering is a quoted, negotiated booking that Mosey carried from first enquiry to confirmed party.

The organiser can also split the deposit across the group. Everyone pays their own share, the organiser's card covers anyone who has not paid by twelve hours before, and nobody has to be the person chasing eight friends for twenty euro. The organiser saves a card up front for exactly that reason — without it the cover cannot run and your deposit is not guaranteed.

Dietary requirements, once, in writing

The organiser gets a link to share with the group. Each guest fills in their own allergies and requirements, and you get one list.

This is the part kitchens actually thank you for. The alternative is a WhatsApp thread relayed by the organiser from memory, and the failure mode of that is somebody's coeliac diagnosis arriving as "one of them can't do bread". The link expires, can be revoked, and can be reissued if the group changes.

Recurring bookings

A monthly supper club, a quarterly board dinner, a weekly team lunch. Set the booking to recur and the next one is created for you as the last one completes.

What it costs

• 4.5% on the gathering deposit, plus 23% VAT on that commission
• Nothing to take enquiries, send quotes, or collect dietary requirements
• Stripe's card fee passed through at cost

If you take no deposit, Gatherings costs you nothing at all.

Setting it up

1. Account → Features → Gatherings. A Gatherings section appears in your sidebar.
2. Say what you offer — minimum numbers, the spaces you have, whether you do exclusive hire.
3. Connect Stripe from Business Info → Account Setup, if you want deposits.
4. Decide your deposit — per head or flat, and at what group size it starts applying.
5. Write your terms once so every quote carries them without retyping.
6. Send yourself a test enquiry and quote it back before a real one lands.

What it connects to

• Reservations — an accepted quote becomes a real booking on your floor.
• Events — when the party is a ticketed sitting rather than a private hire, at 4%.
• Menus — the set menu you quote from is the menu you already built.
• Memberships — a members-only private hire is a straightforward perk at 8%.
• Mosey Pay — the balance on the night, at 1.5%.