Restaurant reservations question

Cafe Society
1

Don’t really know much about fine dining so I’m throwing this out for Dopers’ views. If a small group requests a particular table or type of table when making a booking, and the restaurant confirms the table when confirming the booking, is it normal/acceptable to then give the table away (and put the small group at a different table) if a larger group subsequently requests it?

Obviously I understand why they’d do this from a profit-making perspective, but it seems to me to be a bit of a bait-and-switch. Just wondering if it’s something you’re supposed to expect when making this kind of booking, or something I can reasonably complain about.

2

Most restaurants have a variety of seating available, in such a way as to accommodate both large and small groups. Smaller restaurants clearly have fewer choices. Consider that in your small restaurant the best/possibly or sometimes only way to accommodate say a group of ten, is to combine tables, 3,5, and 6. Trying to accommodate it anywhere else, obstructs the aisle, blocks the fire exit, or makes the other tables awkward to serve.

You call on Monday and the three of you fancy table 1, as it’s it the window, or whatever. A server possibly took your reservation, on a fully unreserved floor plan, you can have any table you fancy, it would seem.

But come Wednesday a group of ten wants to book a table. What to do? The answer is relocate the table of three so as to accommodate both groups. Unless they moved you to beside the bathroom, and especially if it’s a busy Fri or Sat, the patron should try to be understanding. Turning away a table of ten to accommodate three would be silly. One assumes if you like the restaurant, you’d like it to succeed.

All that said, most restaurants insist on a phone number when making a reservation. That means it should play out such that the manager calls you, well beforehand and explains that the person who took your reservation was uninformed/new/in error, etc, they should politely explain and assure you they’d like to make it right, with another well situated table, or free appetizers or desserts or some such.

The person who took your reservation, should have told you it was open BUT you may be moved if a large group need be accommodated, if that’s the case. At the very least you should be informed before you turn up at the restaurant.

Yes, you should complain to the manager, as they definitely should have handled it better. But consider if you’re a small group requesting a larger table that you’ll be more likely to be accommodated on a Tuesday than a Friday or Saturday.

If it helps consider that the train wouldn’t let you take up four seats for two people, just so you’re more comfortable or have room to spread out. If the trains empty, sure. If it’s busy though, not so much. Restaurants are in a similar position!

3

Unless it is a reservation for a specific type of service (such as a chef’s table or something like that) they should have taken your request and let you know that while they’ll do their best to fulfill the request they couldn’t guarantee anything.

For one thing, even if they didn’t give the spot to someone else, unless you were the first or only seating of the night they couldn’t guarantee that the table would be available at the time of your reservation.

Four another thing if you were a party of 5 and the table you requested was an 8 top they really shouldn’t have ever let you reserve it unless they’re usually dead at that time.

4

Thanks. Just to clarify, we requested a table where you’re sitting on the floor on cushions. They don’t have those in “small group” size, but when I went before with only one other person, they put us at one of those tables. This time I specifically requested one, and they told me (without any caveats) that one was available provided we vacated at a particular time, which we agreed to do. Then on the day we were booked for, they phoned and said we can’t accommodate you in one of these. The table that they stuck us in instead was really small and cramped and jammed up right next to one of the comfortable tables… so close I could smell the feet of one of the people sitting at it :frowning: So it did kind of put a damper on the experience.

5

if they called you ahead of time, it is what it is. Wasting table space on a busy night is literally money out of their pockets.

6

Sounds to me like they handled it exactly as they should have.

7

Odd person out on this, and I actually have restaurant experience. The reason for making a reservation is that your seating request is on the books, reserved. If you were a party of four that requested a table for ten then I could see how that could be a problem. However, if restaurant tells you that you have a confirmed reservation - you are owed that table. I’ve worked in mid-to-high-end restaurants and we’d never pull a stunt like that.

8

I guess I’m kind of surprised they even told you the particular table was yours, for sure. I’ve rarely come across restaurants that would allow you to do that; at best, they’d say “we can do our best to get you table <x>, but there’s no guarantee” for all the reason people mention on this thread.

Heck, even the restaurant where we’re pretty good friends with the owner won’t do that for us. If we want one of the primo tables, they do their best to get it for us, but if there’s a group of 4 and we’re only 2, or if the previous people lingered, we get a different table.

9

Yeah, on the day they called back to tell me we didn’t have a cushiony table, they told me “we can never guarantee them”. But they didn’t tell me that in the email they sent to confirm that we *were *booked into one of those tables. Obviously I couldn’t complain if they had.

10

You asked in your original post if you had a legitimate complaint. I think you do because you tried to reserve a table (were told you could), it was canceled at short notice, moreover - it sounds like it was a bad table that you were given. The least they should have done was to seat you at one of the better tables. If you want to go back, tell them that you were concerned about your seating arrangements last time. I’ve been a hostess at an upscale restaurant - they will respect you more if you politely state this than they would if you just ignored it.

11

Yes you have a legitimate complaint. They accepted your booking under certain conditions, and were then unable to meet those conditions.

If it had been done correctly, they would have advised you at the time of booking that they would do their best to accommodate your request but couldn’t guarantee it as those tables are reserved for larger groups.

To their credit, they did advise you ahead of time, rather than waiting until you rocked up to the restaurant.

I’d suggest a letter to the manager advising what happened, and asking for the staff to be trained to not make promises they can’t keep. I can’t see you getting much out of it, this is a pretty small drop in the large ocean of ‘things that go wrong in restaurants’ but at the least, maybe you’ll prevent the same thing happening to someone else.

12

Thanks everyone. I think I’ll go the polite note route.