A quiz built for table service, not for a shouting match. Guests answer on their phones, servers keep working the floor, and a slow Wednesday turns into a full book.
Restaurants that try trivia usually fail for one of two reasons. Either the quiz is so loud it ruins the tables that came in for dinner, or it is so long that a two-top occupies a four-top for three hours and the covers never turn. Both are format problems, not trivia problems. The night works when the quiz fits the way a dining room actually runs.
Quizado is designed for that. Bar Trivia is self-serve: the question appears on a screen and on every guest phone, and answers go in by thumb rather than by voice. There is no microphone, no answer sheets to collect and no scoring pause where the whole room sits still. Servers keep taking orders through the whole thing.
You control the clock. Set the round length, decide how many rounds you run, and finish when your kitchen wants to finish. A three-round quiz across ninety minutes moves faster than a traditional six-round pub quiz and still gives every table a reason to order another course.
Built for hosts and venues who need to look professional from day one.
Questions are read on the screen and answered on the phone. Dining tables who did not come for the quiz can carry on with their evening.
Put a QR code on each table. The party names itself and plays as a team, so nobody has to hand out paper or take names at the door.
You choose the number of rounds and how long each one runs. Build a 60 minute quiz for a two-seating night or stretch it when you want the room to stay.
Scoring happens as answers land. Front of house never leaves the floor to mark answer sheets between courses.
Media questions with images, audio or video are included from Trivia Pro. Use dish photos, local landmarks or ingredient close-ups.
Host from an iPad at the host stand and push the board to a TV. Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, iPadOS, Android and the web app are all supported.
Leagues and seasons on Trivia Pro show you which teams come back week after week, which is the number that tells you whether the quiz is working.
Tuesday and Wednesday carry the same fixed costs as Saturday and a fraction of the revenue.
A dining room with regulars cannot become a shouting contest for one night a week.
When you need the table back by nine, the quiz has to end on time as well.
Sell the quiz as part of a set menu package for birthdays and work dinners.
The fear every operator has is legitimate: a quiz keeps people in seats, and seats are inventory. The answer is not to avoid trivia, it is to decide up front whether tonight is a dwell night or a turn night, and to build the game to match. On a dwell night you want the room full and drinking until close, so run six rounds. On a turn night you run three and finish before the second seating arrives.
Because Quizado scores as answers arrive, the end of the quiz is instant. There is no twenty minute gap where staff mark papers and the room waits with empty glasses. The final leaderboard is on the screen the second the last question closes, which is often the difference between a table leaving happy at nine and a table still there at ten.
Take bookings rather than hoping for walk-ins. A quiz you can staff for is worth twice a quiz you cannot predict. Tell guests the start time, tell them the finish time, and hold tables until ten minutes past. Most restaurants find the second week is bigger than the first purely because word travelled.
Bar Trivia has five round types, six with Music Bingo on Hospitality Group, and Everyone Answers is the one to build a restaurant night around. Every table answers on their phone within the time limit, so there is no buzzing, no race and no noise. Everyone Scores is the second choice, because guessing what the room said is a conversation at the table rather than a shout across it.
Save Buzzer Race and Knockout for the final round, when a bit of tension is welcome and dessert is already on the table. A Wager round works well as a closer too, because it lets a table that fell behind catch up and keeps everyone playing to the end instead of giving up at round four.
If you want themed content rather than format advice, our restaurant trivia night ideas page covers themed rounds, menu tie-ins and seasonal nights in more detail. Read it alongside this page: that one is about what to ask, this one is about how to run it without hurting service.
Almost nothing extra. One person opens the game, connects the display and taps through the questions. Everyone else works the floor as usual. That is the practical case for software over a hosted quiz company: you are not paying a fee per night for a job that a shift lead can do between checks.
Brief the team on two things only. First, where the join QR codes live and what to say when a guest cannot scan one. Second, that guests will ask when the next round starts, so everyone should know the running order. A single printed card at the pass covers both.
Check your wifi covers the whole dining room before the first night, including the booths and the terrace. Guest phones and the host device both need an internet connection, and there is no offline mode. A dead spot on table twelve looks like a broken quiz to the people sitting at it.
Themed rounds, menu tie-ins and seasonal nights to fill a slow service.
How the self-serve quiz works, from table QR codes to instant scoring.
What a shift lead taps through on the tablet while the floor keeps serving.
The plans in full, including which one adds media rounds and leagues.
Put the host app on the iPad at your host stand and run a test service.
Download Quizado free and host your first trivia night tonight!
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