Four empty tables on a Saturday is not a no-show problem. It is a bot problem.
Bot Bouncer scores every booking before it takes a table. Real guests walk straight in. Suspicious bookings get a deposit or a hold, and anything unconfirmed goes back into inventory by 4pm.
Sits behind your existing booking system. Nothing changes for the guest.
Five things, none of them clever.
You should know exactly what gets a booking challenged. Here is what the score looks at, and what each signal can get wrong.
Time to complete
A human filling in a form takes seconds to minutes. A script takes three.
Misses: Fast, confident regulars who book on a saved card.
Attempts across slots
Eleven tries across nine slots in four minutes is not someone deciding.
Misses: A genuinely indecisive party of six.
Account history
Previous visits, previous cancellations, previous no-shows.
Misses: Everyone on their first visit.
Card behaviour
A card seen before, declined then retried, or used across many venues in minutes.
Misses: New cards, which are ordinary.
Verified agent identity
Whether the request is signed by an assistant the venue has chosen to accept.
Misses: Nothing, but only agents that sign can be checked.
No single signal decides anything. Aster's rules weigh them together, then decide whether the table needs a challenge.
Sam booked for two on a Thursday and got challenged.
Sam T.
Party of 2 · Thursday 6:30pm
A challenge is not a rejection. It is a card hold or a confirmation click. Sam cleared hers in 90 seconds.
You set the threshold. Challenge more and you catch more bots and annoy more guests. Challenge less and the reverse.
Every challenged booking is in the dashboard, including the ones that turned out fine.
Any tool that claims no false positives is either lying or letting bots through.
Let the good ones in. Set the rules yourself.
An assistant booking for a real diner is a customer. A script holding nine slots is not. The difference is whether it will sign its name.
One monthly fee. No per-booking charge.
The fee is based on the size of your room, not the number of bookings or challenges. Bot Bouncer sits behind your existing booking system.
Run it on a Saturday service.
Tap through a real evening at a sample restaurant, including the booking it challenged that turned out to be a regular.