The formula
Revenue per seat = Total revenue / Number of seats
RevPASH = Total revenue / (Number of seats x Hours open)
Revenue per seat answers the simplest layout question in the business: what did each chair earn? RevPASH adds time to the same question. A seat held for three hours by one party spending $90 produces the same revenue per seat as a seat turned three times for $30, but the second room serves three times the guests and usually carries a very different labor bill. Dividing by seat hours is what separates a room that is genuinely productive from one that just looks busy, which is why revenue managers, following Cornell professor Sheryl Kimes’ original work, judge dayparts by RevPASH rather than by covers alone.
How to use it, with an example
- Pick one period and keep it consistent: a single dinner service is the most revealing, a full day is the most common.
- Take revenue for exactly that period from your POS, net of refunds, and count every seat available in it.
- Read revenue per seat first for the size question, then RevPASH for the time question.
- Rerun it for lunch and dinner separately. A blended day hides the daypart that is dragging the room down.
- Compare like with like over time: same day of week, same daypart, before you redesign anything.
Worked example: A restaurant takes $9,600 across a full day. It has 80 seats and was open 10 hours, so revenue per seat is $9,600 / 80 = $120 per seat. Available seat hours are 80 x 10 = 800, so RevPASH is $9,600 / 800 = $12.00, inside the typical casual dining band. Across lunch and dinner that is $60 per seat per service. The calculator above is prefilled with these same numbers.
The daypart split is where this metric earns its keep, and it needs sales by hour rather than a daily total. That is standard reporting in Odoo for Restaurants: the Odoo POS module records every order with its table and time, so revenue per seat can be reviewed per service and per section instead of as one blended guess.
Common mistakes
- Counting only dining room seats. If guests eat at the bar or on the patio, those seats produced revenue and belong in the count. Leaving them out inflates the result and flatters the room.
- Comparing a Saturday with a Tuesday. Revenue per seat is a same-daypart, same-weekday comparison tool. Cross-day comparisons mostly measure the calendar.
- Chasing turns to raise RevPASH. Faster turns with a falling average check can leave RevPASH unchanged while labor per cover rises. The metric exists to catch exactly that trade, as our restaurant table management tips explain from the floor’s side.
- Adding seats to fix a low number. If RevPASH is low because hours are empty, more seats divide the same revenue by a bigger number. Fill the hours first.
- Using gross revenue with tax and tips inside it. Revenue should be sales the restaurant keeps. Tax collected for the state and tips passed to staff were never the seat’s earnings.
- Judging fine dining by QSR bands. Concepts trade turns for check size on purpose. Compare against your segment’s band, not the loudest number on the internet.
FAQs
What is a good RevPASH for a restaurant?
By segment, typical ranges are roughly $4 to $10 for quick service, $6 to $14 for fast casual, $8 to $18 for casual dining and $12 to $25 for fine dining. A common full-service target quoted by operators is around $15 to $25 per seat hour at dinner, with lunch lower. Your own trend by daypart matters more than any single band.
What is the difference between revenue per seat and RevPASH?
Revenue per seat divides revenue by seats for a period, however long it was. RevPASH divides by seat hours, so a seat must earn its keep per hour, not per day. Two rooms with identical revenue per seat can have very different RevPASH if one was open twice as long.
How do I increase revenue per seat?
Three levers: fill more of the available hours (daypart offers, reservations pacing), turn seats a little faster where guests are waiting, or raise the average check with menu engineering rather than blanket price rises. Pull the lever that matches the daypart that is actually weak.
Should I include bar and patio seats?
Yes, if guests can dine in them during the period you are measuring. The rule is consistency: the seats in the denominator must be the seats that could have produced the revenue in the numerator.
What is revenue per seat per year used for?
Valuation and site planning. Rules of thumb price concepts at a few thousand dollars of annual revenue per seat, so multiplying your daily revenue per seat across your trading year gives a rough sense of whether a room, or a second site, is sized sensibly. Treat it as a sanity check, not a valuation.
Why is my revenue per seat high but profit low?
Because the seat earned revenue the expensive way: long stays, heavy staffing or discount-driven volume. Revenue per seat ignores labor and food cost, so read it beside your prime cost, never instead of it.
