You book, you press, and the page answers. But it does not always answer the same thing, and the difference is the whole point: on one side the table is yours, on the other your request has arrived and somebody has to look at it.
They are two different sentences because they are two different things, and it would be convenient to write them the same.
When it happens
A restaurant using Bitebooker decides for itself how far to accept without looking: up to a certain party size, and while the room has space, a booking goes straight in. Above that threshold — a large group, an almost full evening — the booking still arrives, but it sits there until a person sees it.
It is not a refusal and it is not a waiting room: it is the real dining room entering the equation.
What to do, and how long it takes
- Wait. The restaurant sees your request in its own book along with every other one for that evening, and usually looks at it when service opens.
- If the evening is close, phone. It is the fastest thing there is: on the phone the restaurant answers while standing in the room, and in thirty seconds you know whether there is space. The number, where the restaurant has given one, is on its page under «Contacts».
- Reopen your booking page: it always carries the state as of now, and it has its own «Reload» button. That is the source, not the email you got at the time — which describes how things stood when it was sent.
Why we do not write «confirmed» anyway
Because someone who reads «confirmed» turns up. And turning up as four on a Saturday night with a booking nobody accepted is the worst thing this site could cause: worse than a «no space» read in time, and much worse than a declared wait.
There are two different sentences for two different states, and they do not get closer for the sake of simplicity. It is the same reason we never write «book» on a place that does not use Bitebooker: there you request a table, and the difference shows before you click.
And if nobody answers
It happens, and the usual cause is not rudeness: it is an evening when nobody opened the book. If the day is getting close, phone. If you have changed your mind, cancel: it is one click from your booking page, and it frees a table that would otherwise sit taken for nothing.
Cancelling in time is the kindest thing you can do to a restaurant — and the only one that leaves it time to put the table back on the list.
This site does one thing: find a table and book it.