Restaurant Forecasting in Distil Diagnostics

Introduction to Forecasting

Forecasting in Distil Diagnostics helps teams make proactive decisions in operations, reservations, marketing and finance to drive cover and revenue growth. 

It helps answer questions such as: Which services need attention? Where can we increase bookings? Where can we reduce controllable costs such as labour or stock?

Forecasting is part of the engine that powers Distil Diagnostics. You can find out more about its companion, Availability Scanning, here.

How Forecasting works in Distil Diagnostics

There are two different party types in Distil Diagnostics forecasting:

1. À la carte (ALC)
2. Groups (GRP)

When you first configured your Distil Diagnostic account, you set the minimum and maximum online reservable party sizes for each restaurant. These settings relate to parties - telling Distil at what number of covers an À la carte party is considered a group.

Distil Diagnostics algorithm forecasts À la carte (ALC) bookings only, because they follow more consistent booking patterns. Group bookings (GRP) tend to be less predictable. They are often managed separately by sales teams and may be handled through dedicated event management tools (such as TripleSeat) rather than standard online reservation channels. As a result, group bookings do not follow the same reliable demand patterns as ALC bookings and are therefore treated separately in forecasting. 

The total forecast figure presented in the Distil Diagnostics forecast combines the À la carte forecast with group bookings that are currently in the books (both confirmed and unconfirmed statuses).

You can view detailed Total Forecast data for each restaurant and service by switching to the weekly view and selecting the Forecast tab.

A la carte (ALC) Forecasting

ALC forecasting is built on our own machine learning technology and data made accessible through Distil’s partnership with OpenTable. 

It incorporates four key data sets:

• Historical data from each site in the group
• Trends across your group portfolio, not just one site
• Market-wide benchmarking from OpenTable’s 60,000-strong restaurant network
• Live demand signals from people searching for availability in the future.

ALC forecasting is available for both established and new venues.

• For established restaurants, the algorithm uses up to one year of historical data and then continues to learn from new information over time
• For new venue openings, the algorithm draws on group benchmarks and wider market trends to generate an initial forecast, even before the site has operational data.

Each restaurant gets its own ALC forecast algorithm, which continues to learn over time and runs every single day.

Currently, Distil Diagnostics forecasting is available to restaurants on OpenTable. Forecasting for restaurants on other booking platforms (such as Seven Rooms or Triple Seat) is available through the Distil Group Reporting suite.

Forecast: Summary View

The summary view is the first screen displayed in Distil Diagnostics once onboarding is complete. 

This view shows group-wide revenue performance for the next 5 weeks, split by day and a cumulative view, plus a cumulative view for the full year. Visibility of the forecast 12 months ahead is useful for proactive decision-making in all teams including finance, marketing, operations and reservations. 

Using the calendar date selector and scrollable ribbon, forecast and actual data can be viewed across an entire year or by day and week.

This key metric can be toggled between revenue and covers performance with the buttons located just above the charts.

Key:

• Blue lines and bars - expected performance (custom targets set during onboarding).
• Green lines and bars - actual performance
• Black lines and bars - ALC forecast performance.
• Orange lines and bars - GRP performance, including confirmed and unconfirmed groups.

Hover over any of the charts to view detailed values in a tooltip. This provides additional context for cover or revenue values such as: 

• Expectation: your set targets
• ALC Forecast: Distil’s AI algorithmic forecast
• GRP bookings: confirmed and unconfirmed parties
• Total Forecast: ALC Forecast + GRP bookings
• Actuals: completed ALC + GRP reservations
• In Books: live upcoming ALC and GRP bookings that update continuously

Forecast: Weekly View

Selecting a week updates the display to show cumulative and day-by-day data for that individual week. Again, you can hover over any point on the charts to show the exact figures, and switch between covers and revenue.

Forecast: Individual Venue Services

To view forecasts for individual venues and services, select Forecast from the sub-menu. 

Each service is displayed showing Forecast vs Expectation, indicating how well the service is booked against predicted performance. The Expectation relates to the targets set by the user who completed the onboarding process.

These forecasts highlight services that may require operational, reservations, or marketing action. For example, the marketing team may adjust their promoted inventory campaigns in OpenTable, create targeted offers in their promotional channels or activate outreach to guests identified through the Single Guest Profile (additional Distil package required). 

This section shows how your total weekly forecast is tracking against your cover expectation. You can expand the dropdown to explore a detailed breakdown of your total forecast, including À la carte (ALC) and Group (GRP) bookings. The expanded view will persist when switching between the Expectation and In Books tabs, allowing you to stay focused when analysing data for a specific restaurant and service.