The restaurant had better have a convenient way for patrons to cancel reservations.
I recently had to cancel a reservation made via Open Table, using their system to notify the restaurant and even made the effort to call the place to make sure they knew. But their number was answered by an automated voice and there was no way to leave a message. They wound up bitching at me through Open Table for not showing up. Tough luck, folks.
There’s no way I’m going to eat anywhere that demands credit card info in advance. People get sick and encounter other emergencies, and if you make it hard to get in touch with you, you won’t get cancellation notices . I’m not going to beg Chez Trendy to not charge my card.
My own approach is that I’ll wait until Chez Trendy is no longer trendy then eat there on an off-peak day when it’s half-full and when I can hear the conversation of my tablemates. Rather than hearing only the unremitting din of other tables’ diners shouting to be heard over the din of other tables shouting.
Once the baying horde moves on to the new new trendy, I’m happy enough to follow in their forgotten wake. If the place is still open, it was probably actually good. If it dies once the crowd moves on, evidently it was a Kardashaurant: uselessness simply famous for being (briefly) famous.
It does not matter if a place is “trendy”. It matters if it is good. A good restaurant will remain famous and be full of people, therefore the importance of reservations. Sure there are always off-peak days and/or times of day, of course.
When I saw the topic, I thought it would be about the customers arriving late for the reservation. Most restaurants will hold a reservation for 15 minutes.
And I would expect the restaurant to reciprocate. That is, I would expect to be seated within 15 minutes of my reservation.
An hour’s wait after reserving is not acceptable. The restaurant should have offered cocktails and appetizers for such a long wait.
The only time I have given my credit card for a reservation was for Mother’s Day brunch at a very popular restaurant. Even if we hadn’t been able to go, we would have made sure someone else took the reservation.
I think we were still able to cancel up to 24 hours in advance. But it was a while ago, and they haven’t had the brunch for the last 3 years.
If they’re willing to offer free drinks presumably they’d let you get a free appetizer or dessert instead. Liquor always has a bigger profit margin than food.
That’s why they would rather give away free drinks: the $12 drink cost them $2 in materials but the $12 appetizer may have cost them $8 (or whatever, numbers made up). Higher margin items are better give aways.
That’s shoddy management on their part, and you were perfectly justified in walking out. Besides, could you even trust the one hour wait time that they gave you would be accurate?
I would probably have left. I have no interest in sitting at the bar for an hour.
Unless I was entertaining out-of-town guests or something, in which case the point is to spend time with my guests, and the bar might be okay for that.
(I don’t drink much, and never right before a meal. If they bring my glass of wine before they bring my food, the wine will sit there until I’m served. My husband is a teetotaler. He will have even less fun at the bar.)
I’m reminded of the “Seinfeld” car rental scene. “You know how to take a reservation, you just don’t know how to hold the reservation. And really, that’s the most important part – the holding.”
One experience, I’ll forgive. Twice, and I’ll assume that it wasn’t a rarity but something baked into their processes, and I’ll probably avoid the establishment.
There’s a well-regarded “hip” spot here in town that doesn’t take reservations. This summer I tried to go there- I showed up 45 minutes before closing. There were some empty tables, a spot or two at the bar, and a fair number of other folks having a good time over their food and drink. I asked “could I sit down to eat?” and was told no, sorry, we’re closed. No other explanation.
I went back last week to try for dinner- stood outside in a scrum/vague line of people waiting to put our names in or be acknowledged in some way. After 15 minutes or so, a few people from the group got seated, but no employee spoke to anyone in line who had arrived in the time I had been there. I gave up, went back to the car where my wife was waiting, and we went elsewhere.
I know places are short-staffed, but the folks working here are, for the most part, experienced in the industry. Having zero front of house process/communication, letting people stand in line outside without being greeted for 20 minutes at least, and turning customers away who arrive within advertised business hours (and while you are clearly open) is just … well, they seem to be busy, so maybe it’s not costing them money. It certainly means that I’m not going to choose it over myriad other options where at least someone will say “hello, welcome, we expect the wait to be 45 minutes.” Except I have this danged gift certificate there that I don’t want to go to waste. Ah well, maybe next time I get in the car and drive there I’ll be lucky enough to be able to sit down.
When I’ve had to wait to be seated for longer than a few minutes at a restaurant, even with a reservation, this is almost always why (and few, if any, well-managed restaurants will actively shoo out lingering diners). It’s particularly the case if there are more than a couple of people in my party, as the restaurant typically has only a few larger tables.
It’s also the case that large parties are far more likely to linger than are couples or foursomes. Six, eight, or twelve people are not getting together for sustenance; they’re getting together for camaraderie and conversation. Which can take a lot longer than eating a meal does.
I don’t recall ever waiting an hour on a reservation. I don’t think I would have waited even with free drinks offered although I’d probably try them again since they’d told me up front. If I saw them seating walk-ins I might complain loudly before leaving but if they are full up from reservations they probably have done nothing deliberately to create the situation.
Once I did wait nearly an hour to get a bill. Out for a holiday brunch with another couple the place was overloaded with business and after finishing our meal we waited. And waited. We flagged down any waiter we could find to request a bill but nobody ever came back to us. There was no one at the front, the only people we could see paying were leaving money on the table but we really didn’t have a good idea what our meal cost and as time went on we were much less motivated to leave a pile of cash on the table that would cover the bill plus an undeserved tip. So eventually, after waiting well more than 30 minutes for any service we got up and left. Only once we were outside I saw my wife wasn’t there and eventually found her back inside where she found someone to offer a minimal bill for the meal which I paid begrudgingly. Obviously we never returned.
The economics of restaurants are such that an items for cost should be one third of the selling price, so a $12 app should contain $4 of food.
But yes, there is a distinctly better profit margin on drinks, so a smart manager will offer free drinks rather than free food. The profit margin on food is normally around 10%, but on drinks, the margin is more like 70-80%
That happened to me once. We never succeeded in flagging down a server, and finally, we just got up and very slowly walked out. Someone came up to us as we were nearly at the door, and asked us to pay. We explained that we’d been trying to pay for an hour, and then we settled up and left.
If the place is so backed up they’re an hour late on seating reservations, they’re probably not too concerned with keeping you as a customer, at least for that particular night. They likely want you to decide to go somewhere else, so they can reduce the crush.
Especially if they can do so without making you decide not to come back another night. But surely they are worried, at least a little, about that later bit.