Abstract
Cafe customers often only learn about seat availability after they arrive. This literature review maps the research on cafes and examines how seat availability information is produced, displayed, and tested. Literature published between 2021 and 2026 was searched in Google Scholar and Garuda using the keywords "seat reservation," "seat availability," "cafe," and "customer experience." A total of 113 articles were mapped to six research focuses and then narrowed down to 31 articles on seat reservation and seat occupancy detection. Eight reservation systems display seat availability to customers, but this status is derived from administrator input or reservation data. Three detection systems read seat conditions through sensors or cameras, but none are linked to reservations. This review identified three gaps: no system combines reservations with seat occupancy, test results for double-booking prevention have not been reported, and customer experience with seat availability information has not been measured.
