We had a reservation for dinner tonight for 6:45 PM at a local charhouse. When we arrived, they told us “We’re really behind, it will be another hour.” Um, no. I planned to eat around 7:30, not 8:30. We walked out.
Anyone else experience such a delay with an advanced reservation?
Half an hour, on several occasions, an hour, never.
Yeah, we’ve waited 15-20 minutes in the bar before, but an hour? At that point, why are they taking reservations they cannot honor?
I get it, restaurants can run behind, workers get sick or don’t show up, yada, yada, yada. Their response should have been… We’re running about an hour behind; it’s not your fault (duh). A tab is open at the bar. Have a few drinks on us while you wait for a table.
Now, if you don’t drink or don’t want to hang around, you have a right to march out, muttering under your breath never to return, but two cocktails each for two people seems like a fair accommodation to me. If they didn’t mention the free drinks, I would have made that suggestion for them. Are they going to tell me to piss off? I doubt it.
I agree, they definitely should have handled it better, such as a drink or two in the bar. Instead, they just basically shrugged their shoulders. Won’t be back, nice place for our area, too.
You’re totally within your rights, and I don’t blame you one bit. A Yelp! review would let others know what happened to you.
Right. Nothing is worse for a restaurant than telling the world how busy they are.
If I learned the restaurant was too busy to honor my reservation or make up for it in some way, yes, I’d like to know that.
45–50 minutes, and we got free drinks (nice ones!) at the bar while we waited. Trendy Nouvelle Cuisine place.
No. It’s great that they were busy, but they should still honor their reservations within a reasonable margin of error. An hour past is not reasonable.
I respect the fact that they told you it would be an hour up front. At least, they weren’t bullshitting you for an hour with, “It will just be a few more minutes”.
If they have no place to seat you, and no free staff to serve you because of the backup (whatever it was), how can they honor your reservation? Kick some other customer group out?
Even if they did manage to get you a table, you would have spent an hour sitting there waiting to be served, more than likely.
I’d be irritated too, but it could have been worse.
I’d have left. Even if they’d offered drinks, I’d have left, since I don’t drink. I could handle 10-15 minutes, but if a place offers reservations, they need to plan accordingly. I know stuff happens, but I’m not going to sit around for an hour because of stuff.
I have to say, tho, I honestly don’t recall the last time I dined with a reservation. We tend to go where we want to eat, and if the wait is too long, we look for another option. Life’s too short, and all that…
They failed to honor the reservation when they sat the walk-in groups before, or, if every single table is a reservation, then they took way too many.
Heh. I like waiting at the bar. I like punctuality, but I enjoy sitting at the bar.
We’re in the regrettable situation that some folks make reservations at more than one restaurant so they can “preserve their options” to the last minute, and use one of their reservations and let the other 1 (or 5) go unused. The unsurprising consequence is restaurants overbook, and the more trendy / must-have the place is the more they have to do that.
Or maybe this place does no overbooking but simply had a bunch more no-show workers than usual that night. Unlucky for them and for their customers.
Me I’d walk out. Not angry, just disappointed. There is nearly nothing in life so excellent as to be worth waiting for when non-waiting alternatives are nearby. The whole point if a reservation is to short-cut the waiting.
My new wife is an interesting change of pace. In her mind, the fact something is trendy-level popular is proof it’s very, very good. In my mind the fact it’s trendy-level popular is proof that sheep follow whatever TwitFace tells them to do. “Trendy” is simply a side effect of exponential growth of chimps imitating each other imitating each other. Where the initial seed might have been genuine quality or it might more likely have been marketing skullduggery. Given the crowd of idjits out there, I’ll take my judgment over their crowd-think any day.
Maybe. But also, stuff happens at a restaurant. Staff call out last minute, equipment breaks, diners linger longer than anticipated. Doesn’t mean that OP is in any way obligated to wait around (and good practice would have been to offer his party a drink at the bar while they wait), but I’m always amazed by how personally affronted some people get when their table is not instantly ready for them.
In the UK it has become common for popular/trendy establishments to require a credit card number before they will accept a reservation. They make it clear that they will make a substantial charge for a no-show. They would be legally entitled to all of the profit they would have made and this applies even if they were able to take a walk-in and therefore no lost profit. Hotels can and do enforce the same rule.
Yes. I have seen the same thing in a few restaurants in the US too. Doubtless it’s going to spread and be another phase in the never-ending tit-for-tat warfare between the scrupulous and the unscrupulous on both sides of the cash register.
That’s de rigueur for most small seating pre-fixe restaurants in California, especially omakase sushi places. The usual no-show charge is $150 per diner.