Question about London restaurant reservations
 

In scanning some restaurant reservations in London I see start time. (Say 19:00). And after that it says “until” with another time (say 20:00)

What does this mean? Will you be seated at 19:00 and have to be finished at 20:00? Or will you be seated between 19:00 and 20:00?

I am guessing that your table is limited to the time suggested...usually it is 2 hours, depending on how many people are in your party.

You are usually given 15 mins leeway ( your table will be held for 15 mins if you are late and then given up). I have never heard of an hour leeway...

Maybe it would help if you said where you are seeing this and which restaurants.

I've never encountered it but it sounds like you are limited to only one hour for your meal. That would be okay for a fast casual place, but I've never heard of that for a higher level restaurant. The restaurant reservation should be making this clear as to what it means.

Here's an example of a London theater restaurant that makes it clear that you only get a two hour time slot for dinner if you book at 6:30 pm or earlier.
Reservations - Sarastro Restaurant
Here's

I have made a reservation at The Red Lion Pub Westminster...casual place. It’s right across the bridge from our hotel.
We will be arriving that afternoon with major jet lag and just want a somewhat early and easy dinner for us & our teen granddaughter.

The reservation is for a Saturday at 18:30 UNTIL 19:30. We received a confirmation and have now sent a return email for info on that time. I’ll let you know the response.

A few years ago we took her sister on the same trip and can remember wandering the Southbank area and not being able to get in anywhere. We don’t want a repeat of that on arrival.

We also ran into the “UNTIL” thing when looking at several other casual places on line.

I should add that this is June 9th. In other months we generally wing it but in our past experience June is a very busy time.
London & Paris will be packed so we are making reservations for everything.
On that Sat. night with her sister we ended up at McDonalds...only place we could get in. Not a nice experience.

The restaurant was asking how long you want the table for. You can book from a certain time until a certain time. The max seems to be 3 hours and the minimum is an hour.

I have never heard of selecting an ending time, but if you can click on additional time like Odin has mentioned then that would make sense.
I think it is a great idea as we've called for reservations at formal, popular local restaurants where we live (in the US) and often told there is nothing available because they assume most people want 2 hours for dinner. When I say we will only be dining for one hour they have tables available.

It's is all about table turning, you book the table from a time to another, welcome to a modern pressurised city. No I don't like it but for the basic average very attractive restaurant in a very busy area this is what you get.

French tourists to London must be horrified!

It mostly only happens for early/pre theatre meals/menus. Many places have a limited set menu for between 5:00/5:30-ish and 7:00.

Possibly, but the 300 to 400,000 French who live in London, "c'est la vie" :-)

We just received a very polite response from the restaurant.
The dining kitchen closes at 7:30 and the dining room closes at 8:00 so our 6:30 arrival time should be fine. We can then move to the bar tables if we so desire.
An hour and a half will definitely be good for us.

it seems odd for a dining room to close at 8:00 on a Sat. Night but I suppose the pub gets lively then.
Not for us as we will jet lag crash after dinner.

Pubs aren’t particularly noted for late evening food. They are after all drinking places first & foremost, especially on a Saturday night.

I’m always surprised at the number of visitors who want to eat in pubs, when there are so many great restaurants in London. The average pub is fine for a quick basic lunch but unless it’s a fancy gastro pub or maybe a lovely pub out in the countryside, I’d never choose one for a Saturday night meal.

<<Possibly, but the 300 to 400,000 French who live in London, "c'est la vie>>

Yes, and I'm sure they grumble about it constantly. Just the way the expat Brits in France grumble about nearly everything.

Why a pub for us?

As I said above....we’re flying in that day. When we arrive we’ll have been up for 26 hours. Short 2 hr. nap, get outside and walk around a bit, early dinner and bed. We’ll be good to go the next morning.

There is no way we would enjoy a leisurely, expensive dinner that night. A pub fits the bill.
we have been traveling to Europe every year for 17 years and this is what works for us.

Actually - just a casual restaurant in the neighborhood would likely be as good or better. Especially that early in the evening when few are dining.

many pubs - not 'gastropubs' but run of the mill pubs, just do commercially pre-prepared meals.

Okay, I wasn’t suggesting you get a leisurely expensive meal - just that there are loads of good restaurants (not just expensive or fancy ones) and that eating what a pub kitchen produces on a Saturday night just before the kitchen closes isn’t my idea of even good casual quick food.

A lot of visitors to the U.K. have this idea that pubs serve good traditional food so I’m just trying to gently suggest that it’s not necessarily the case (as Janis outlines above).

if you’ve been to Europe - presumably London? - before then fine, and you obviously know what you’re doing. Apologies for trying to help you out.

But my thoughts stand: pubs are rarely the best choice even for a casual quick meal (unless it’s known for its food) and especially on a Saturday night when the main focus will be drink. There are cheap casual restaurants everywhere.

When I first moved to London in the late 80s, the advice from my colleagues at the time regarding eating in a pub was to choose either a ploughman's lunch or scampi.
Ploughman's doesn't require cooking, and scampi goes from freezer to fryer, they can't mess that up.
Things have changed since then, but there's a big difference in pubs.
It sounds like the Red Lion is more of a drinking place on a Saturday. It's possible that they do not allow under 18s after 8 pm.

I do appreciate all comments above. Any suggestions of a restaurant, walking distance from Park Plaza Westminster Hotel, that will take a reservation would be welcomed.

We are just trying to avoid a “food oddessy”....this is what we call wandering around with no reservation trying to find
someplace to eat. This happened when we took our other GD to London a few years ago. Sat. night 7:00pm walking down the river walk, and then walked inland. I think we checked in every restaurant, one after the other. All we want is a sandwich, fries, and a glass of wine. No Mexican, no Indian, just plain food.

After crossing crossing the river last time we saw The Red Lion and thought it might be a fun, easy place for a bite to eat.

There are all sorts of casual places all along and just off the Southbank. . . . But why not consider the restaurant in the hotel.