Tonight's tables.
At the kitchens worth going to.
Half off the food bill. £5 to £14 to claim the table by party size, a non-refundable hold. Drinks at menu price. Nothing is bookable yet. We open in January 2027.
The kitchens we curate are below. Follow the ones you'd eat at and we'll ping you the moment they drop a table at 4pm.
At the door, just give your name. No voucher, no app, no awkward explanation.
The kitchens.
Each room is held to the same bar: we'd eat there at full price. Follow the ones you'd eat at.
Fire-cooked small plates · Brunswick & Adelaide · £££
Fire. Spice. Plates to share.
Traditional British · country pub · Berwick · ££
A country pub oozing with comfort and charm.
Modern British · chef-led country pub · Newick · £££
A proper pub. Beautifully done.
Traditional British · hotel pub & restaurant · Bramber · ££
A South Downs retreat with cosy hospitality and quality dining.
British gastropub · seasonal menu · Rottingdean · ££
19th-century coaching inn in the heart of the village, big garden, proper Sunday roasts
Tonight's seats and half-price food open at 4pm. Follow a kitchen and we'll ping you the second it drops a table.
Get the heads-up at 4pm.
One ping at 4pm with tonight's kitchens. Push or email, your call. Nothing else.
At the door you just give your name. No voucher, no app, no awkward explanation, and nobody at the next table knows.
How it works
“We don’t put a table on Halfseat unless it would have walked out empty.”
Dan, head chef · Ash & Honey, a founding venue
From the room
"We don't put a table on Halfseat unless it would have walked out empty.That's the whole idea. No gimmicks, no minimum-spends, no walk-in pressure. Just a quiet table that found someone to eat at it."
Dan, head chef, Ash & Honey (a Coal & Co venue)
A short list, updated daily.
Around 4pm, the kitchens release the seats they expect to leave empty. No more than 4-8 listings a night, quality over volume.
£5 to £14 to hold the table.
By party size: £5 for 1–2, £8 for 3–4, £14 for 5–6. Between £3 and £8 of it goes straight to the venue. Non-refundable, because it is a hold on a last-minute table: if you don’t come, the venue keeps their share.
Half off the food bill.
The kitchen halves their food charge. Drinks at full price, the venue keeps the margin where it lives. You eat for less, the room stays profitable.
Built by hospitality operators
We run real rooms ourselves, so we built the kind of deal a kitchen will actually say yes to.
Common questions.
Is this a Groupon thing?+
No. We don't print vouchers, we don't sell to deal-hunters. The list is curated, you're booking the rooms a critic would put on their burner phone. The £5 fee + half-off-food is the unlock, not the point.
How does the venue feel about this?+
They built the model with us. Each booking sends £3 to the venue's account, they earn more per Halfseat cover than they would on FirstTable (and keep 100% of their drinks margin, unlike EatClub).
Can I cancel or get a refund?+
The fee is non-refundable, it's a hold on a last-minute table. If you can't make it you can release the table for someone else up to an hour before, but the fee stays with us and the venue, the same as any restaurant treats a no-show.
What about drinks?+
Drinks at full price. Restaurants make most of their margin on drinks and discounting them would mean the venue couldn't say yes to listing in the first place. You're getting half off the food bill, which is plenty.
What do I show at the door?+
Just give your name. That's it. The venue knows you're coming and seats you the same as every other guest. No voucher, no app, no awkward explanation. Pay your half of the food bill plus full drinks when you leave, as normal.
Is there a limit on how often I can book?+
No booking limits. Claim a table whenever seats are live. Some venues set their own cap on how many Halfseat visits a single diner can make per year, you'll see this noted on their page if it applies.
Why tonight only?+
Because if a venue can sell that table at full price two weeks out, they should. We only want the seats that were genuinely going to leave empty. That's the point: a real last-minute list, not a discount channel.
Where else do you operate?+
Brighton only for now. Bristol + Bath are next (within 90 days of Brighton hitting steady state). London comes last when we can do it properly.