Restaurants that don't do reservations can fu(k off.

[BigFatCoward]

Seriously, what the f'ck is that about?  No i don't want to travel for 30-45 minutes into London on the off chance i can get a table.  No i don't want to stand around on the street in the rain being a pain in the arse for everyone who has to walk in the road to get around me and breathing in the smoke of a bunch of antisocial pricks. And no i don't want to go elsewhere for a drink and get a call when my table is ready, order a pint and then have to rush back because you will give my table away if i'm not there in 5 minutes.  

What is the point?  Is it really something as simple as advertising by having a queue outside the establishment?  It seems like a truly ridiculous business plan from the outside, but more and more places are doing it so it must have its positives. 

 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

1 minute ago, BigFatCoward said:

Seriously, what the f'ck is that about?  No i don't want to travel for 30-45 minutes into London on the off chance i can get a table, no i don't want to stand around on the street in the rain being a pain in the arse for everyone who has to walk in the road to get around me and breathing in the smoke of a bunch of antisocial pricks, and no i don't want to go elsewhere for a drink and get a call when my table is ready, order a pint and then have to rush back because you will give my table away if i'm not there in 5 minutes.  

What is the point?  Is it really something as simple as advertising by having a queue outside the establishment?

 

One of two possibilities, methinks. Either they are promoting a sort of avant-garde, anti-establishment sort of a vibe. (We don't do that. it's too mainstream) or they tried to do it and it became too much of a hassle. Like they don't have a maitre d and don't want to hire one, or they have enough repeat business that they don't really have to bother with it. It is a real hassle for a small restaurant, especially a busy, crowded small restaurant.  

[Kelli Fury]

Or, tons of people no show reservations and they have to turn actual in person diners away.

[kairparavel]

Like Ms Fury said, although a lot of it is also hype and gimmicky. So how about instead of no RSVP, you have to pay half the price up front when you place your RSVP a month earlier? 

[Mexal]

1 minute ago, kairparavel said:

Like Ms Fury said, although a lot of it is also hype and gimmicky. So how about instead of no RSVP, you have to pay half the price up front when you place your RSVP a month earlier? 

I would also think the timing of the reservation matters. If you open at 5:30 but have a reservation for 7, you're more or less tying up a table for an hour and half where you could be seating someone. I know I've walked in early before and gotten seated at those types of tables but I'm also sure those tables go empty a lot too because of reservations.

Alinea in Chicago made me pay for the entire meal up front when I made my reservation. Probably to avoid what Kay said.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

10 minutes ago, Kelli Fury said:

Or, tons of people no show reservations and they have to turn actual in person diners away.

Right, and that's a real problem for a popular neighborhood restaurant that gets a lot of return business. You don't turn away regulars, period.

[Theda Baratheon]

A lot of places I know you pay a deposit when you book a table which is the best way really. And what me and my friends do a lot. I don't like places that flat out will refuse to accept a reservation especially if a deposit is being paid because otherwise you could have a no show and youve turned people away for no reason. 

[Iskaral Pust]

Not taking reservations is almost always about creating hype.  Frontera Grill (Rick Bayless) is notorious in Chicago for not taking reservations.  Small town midwestern tourists apparently love that shit.  Any given evening has a wait of at least 45 minutes for a table.  And they do seating shifts, so if you narrowly miss one seating then it's a further two hours until the next.  We just don't go there.  Life's too short. Leave stuff like that to the scenesters or tourists who are easily impressed by big city ways.  There are plenty of great restaurants who will take reservations.

Financial penalties for breaking a reservation are a different matter.  I have some sympathy for destination restaurants that are unlikely to find a walk-in replacement.  We were at Tru recently (I would not recommend, BTW), where the prix fixe costs $160 per person before drinks, extras, tax or tip, and the meal lasts four hours (I would so not recommend).  But if we had broken that reservation, there is no way they'd have a walk-in, in the required dress code, ready to show up and plunk down $500+ on dinner.  They'd have an empty table for four hours.  Reservations there are made weeks in advance (god knows why), so no-one is even going to look for a late notice opening.   The restaurant would need to be able to recover the cost of the no-show.  I can accept that.

[S John]

Most places in Austin are no reservations.  I am sympathetic to the OP.  

Waiting in lines fucking drives me nuts, in general, because I am the type of person capable of making and keeping an appointment.  If I can't make a reservation and the only way to get in somewhere is to wait in line more than 30-45 minutes to get a table, I seriously don't want to go anymore and I don't care how good it is supposed to be.  I love food and there is so much good food around here that I don't feel like I really need to put up with any hype-driven bullshit.  

In most cases I'd be happy to pay a deposit to hold a reservation for me, which I WILL keep in lieu of a major emergency, instead of waiting in line like I'm about to go on a god damn roller coaster.  I get crabby when I'm hungry.  If I know there's going to be a stupid line, I go elsewhere.  

[Sir Thursday]

Are you talking about Dishoom, by any chance? Their restaurant in Covent Garden is awful for that. The surrounding restaurants must get a bunch of extra business from all the people like myself who turn up, look at the 45 minute queue and decide to try another place nearby. Maybe if you own some nearby places you do it to drive custom to the ones that don't quite have the hype?

ST

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

I have never had to make a deposit to get a reservation.  That said most nice restaruants in my area do reservations without deposit.  Most mid scale restaruants don't take reservations around here.

[Iskaral Pust]

The practice that truly bugs me is when you show up on time for a reservation and you are told that your table won't be available for 15 minutes or more.  I'll allow a short grace period but not more than ten minutes.  One place asked us to wait 30-40 minutes for our table but we just left, and told them we'd never be back.  I may be less patient than most but I expect my reservation to be fulfilled, that's why I made the advance reservation and showed up on time.  People get grouchy when they're hungry; restaurants know this and can't expect much slack from treating customers shabbily.

[Isis]

2 hours ago, Mexal said:

Alinea in Chicago made me pay for the entire meal up front when I made my reservation. Probably to avoid what Kay said.

Holy shit. I mean, really. Any explanation given for that practice? Is it because you're not meant to sully the experience by carrying dirty money with you when you enter? Even though I'd definitely love to eat there that would put me off. 

BFC, are you talking about that place in Soho, I want to say Graze, or something else that starts with a G. If yes, then I think it's just for the sake of hype and I'm not fussed about going there. 

[sperry]

Agreed that if you take reservations, you damn well better have the table ready at that time.

 

I also understand not taking reservations.  If you just do walk ups, you can keep all of your tables occupied basically 100% of the time.  You lose a lot of time with reservations because you have to have a buffer to avoid being unable to seat the reservations you've made.

 

For higher end places I need to be able to make a reservation though. If I'm paying $50+ for an entree, I'm not going to wait in line.

[lessthanluke]

16 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

The practice that truly bugs me is when you show up on time for a reservation and you are told that your table won't be available for 15 minutes or more.  I'll allow a short grace period but not more than ten minutes.  One place asked us to wait 30-40 minutes for our table but we just left, and told them we'd never be back.  I may be less patient than most but I expect my reservation to be fulfilled, that's why I made the advance reservation and showed up on time.  People get grouchy when they're hungry; restaurants know this and can't expect much slack from treating customers shabbily.

I made a reservation for my girlfriend and I a few weeks ago at one of the nicer restaurants in town (or so I had been told) we got there on time then were made to wait 45 minutes for "our" table. I would have left but we'd already ordered a drink and I was really hungry by this point. 

ETA - They didn't tell us it would be a 45 minute wait. We just ordered a drink and assumed it would be 5 minutes

 

 

[kairparavel]

31 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

The practice that truly bugs me is when you show up on time for a reservation and you are told that your table won't be available for 15 minutes or more.  I'll allow a short grace period but not more than ten minutes.  One place asked us to wait 30-40 minutes for our table but we just left, and told them we'd never be back.  I may be less patient than most but I expect my reservation to be fulfilled, that's why I made the advance reservation and showed up on time.  People get grouchy when they're hungry; restaurants know this and can't expect much slack from treating customers shabbily.

We managed to get a last-minute reservation for 9:45 on a Saturday night a few weeks ago at very high end restaurant here called Kinship. When we arrived we were told the previous party wasn't quite done and were probably going to be a bit longer so would we mind taking a booth in the bar area (which we could have walked into hours earlier and gambled on getting a seat at but we had the reservation so...). Anyways, we all decided to be easygoing about it and sometime during our first course and champagne a gentleman wanders through the bar near our booth and MC realizes that it's Thomas Keller. I believe it was his party that was at our table. It's ok Chef, you take as long as you need.

[kairparavel]

Also, this WaPo article talks about the trend towards no reservations, particularly here in DC. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/no-reservations-this-restaurant-trend-has-become-harder-to-swallow/2014/05/15/3d4d7308-cfb3-11e3-937f-d3026234b51c_story.html

We waited in line for about an hour for the chance to get a table 3 hours later at Rose's Luxury. So we sat at the bar next door and tried not to get too drunk over the course of three hours, until it was our turn to take our seats. The food was very good, but we'll never do it again. Rose's Luxury will take reservations, one per evening, for a group of 8-12 on their rooftop garden. Er, yeah. But I guess you can do that kind of thing when you're voted Best New Restaurant by Bon Appetit and others and your chef is a James Beard Award winner. The sister restaurant in the group takes reservations, but they only open up the month before and you pay $125 per diner at the time of the reservation. The sister restaurant to Kinship does something similar. 

[Iskaral Pust]

I'm always surprised by the combination of pricey destinations with long waits.  Usually high income people put a very high value on their time and aren't willing to wait very long for anything.  This is why a lot of discounts are effortful (e.g. clipping coupons or waiting in the long line at a theme park) so that you can separate those who can pay the higher price from those who cannot: the people who can afford more generally won't waste their time to get the lower price. 

Restaurants with no reservations and long waits make me think of people in their 20s trying to be cool or tourists trying to have a big experience.  But neither category typically pays top dollar for dining.  I know the DC restaurant scene is very busy and pretty trendy, but I'm surprised they have enough people willing to pay a lot and wait hours for the privilege. 

[MercenaryChef]

after 14 hours at work i should not be so excited to talk about reservations, but i am!

some things:

• taking reservations through online means costs a restaurant money. we write a check every month to open table. the more we are booked the more they make.
• a place like alinea asking to be paid before hand is sensible for them. the food and show that is provided there needs to be prepared well in advance. 
• waiting in line is something i will do only once unless it is outstanding. as the wife mentioned above we waited 3 hours to eat once. i would never do it again. the food and experience were quite good, but my time is more valuable than that and there are so many other places to eat. routinely i will wait an hour for a bowl of ramen. the place is always packed and the ramen is awesome. it is worth the wait each and every single time.
• not being sat on time. we overbook every single seat. almost every restaurant does. we all have an idea on how long it takes to get you in and out the door, but things happen. sometimes it is the greatest american chef taking up your table, sometimes it is something not so cool. where i work we usually spot you a cocktail or something to help make up for the wait. empty tables are making no money. 
• places not taking reservations: i generally don't have the time for it. when we travel i almost always have a reservation in my back pocket i can use (or simply cancel) if a place we want to eat is no reservation policy and we don't get a table.
• having too many reservations: sometimes i am that guy. that guy is a dick. he usually shows himself during valentine's day or new year's eve. he grabs four or five reservations and then just shows up where he really wants to eat at the moment. but that is ok. we as restaurant operators know he exists and have overbooked the tables anyways. just friday night i had three reservations on the go as i was waiting to find out where the wife and our dining companions wanted to eat. 

i totally get where our op is coming from. sometimes you just want to show up to a place when you agreed to, have a nice meal and be on your way. and there are loads and loads of places to do that. but, there are also those places that are for whatever reason not taking reservations. i just always hope that the wait in line is worth it.

 

but, hey. don't the british really like a nice queue?

[BigFatCoward]

4 hours ago, MercurialCannibal said:

after 14 hours at work i should not be so excited to talk about reservations, but i am!

some things:

• taking reservations through online means costs a restaurant money. we write a check every month to open table. the more we are booked the more they make.
• a place like alinea asking to be paid before hand is sensible for them. the food and show that is provided there needs to be prepared well in advance. 
• waiting in line is something i will do only once unless it is outstanding. as the wife mentioned above we waited 3 hours to eat once. i would never do it again. the food and experience were quite good, but my time is more valuable than that and there are so many other places to eat. routinely i will wait an hour for a bowl of ramen. the place is always packed and the ramen is awesome. it is worth the wait each and every single time.
• not being sat on time. we overbook every single seat. almost every restaurant does. we all have an idea on how long it takes to get you in and out the door, but things happen. sometimes it is the greatest american chef taking up your table, sometimes it is something not so cool. where i work we usually spot you a cocktail or something to help make up for the wait. empty tables are making no money. 
• places not taking reservations: i generally don't have the time for it. when we travel i almost always have a reservation in my back pocket i can use (or simply cancel) if a place we want to eat is no reservation policy and we don't get a table.
• having too many reservations: sometimes i am that guy. that guy is a dick. he usually shows himself during valentine's day or new year's eve. he grabs four or five reservations and then just shows up where he really wants to eat at the moment. but that is ok. we as restaurant operators know he exists and have overbooked the tables anyways. just friday night i had three reservations on the go as i was waiting to find out where the wife and our dining companions wanted to eat. 

i totally get where our op is coming from. sometimes you just want to show up to a place when you agreed to, have a nice meal and be on your way. and there are loads and loads of places to do that. but, there are also those places that are for whatever reason not taking reservations. i just always hope that the wait in line is worth it.

 

but, hey. don't the british really like a nice queue?

all sensible points.  the restaurants i'm talking about though tend to be mid range £20 a head type places.  Burger and Lobster being a prime example, which i don't even particularly like but the wife really does.  Maybe that is what really pisses me off, queuing to go somewhere i don't even particularly want to eat.  

On the other hand we recently had to book a year in advance to secure a table on a Tuesday night at a restaurant, that is really taking the piss.