How the tables have turned on turning tables

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A seat is a terrible thing to waste: Restaurateurs need to be proactive in eliminating no-shows

The hospitality industry - restaurants, cafes and the very people that operate these establishments - have received considerable customer backlash of late as they seek to receive advance payment for future table bookings. Venues are requiring pre-payment as a strategy to reduce the costs of no-shows which slow their financial recovery caused by the pandemic. By establishing a degree of commitment from their future customers, restaurateurs can eliminate the considerable financial harm caused by the unconscionable conduct of some customers.

“It is important to remember that a seat in a restaurant is a perishable commodity – if you don’t show up for your Thursday evening booking, the restaurant can’t re-sell it on Friday.”

Ashley Cooke – Senior Food & Hospitality Consultant. Future Food

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Whilst pre-payment has been common practice amongst the fine dining establishments across the country for some time, it’s the more recent (post-COVID) uptake of this by smaller operators that seem to have rustled the feathers of the foodie community and dining fraternity. General consensus appears to be that restaurants are being too demanding, unreasonable, that they don’t have the right to ask for upfront payment, they are greedy or that they are being arrogant and narcissistic about their status.

For me, this appears to be very short-sighted view. Those who are quick to reject this etiquette are potentially the same ones who labelled local operators arrogant for electing to operate with a first-in, best-dressed policy some 10 years prior.

Let’s revisit 2006 – 2012 when it became common place for the most desirable, up-and-coming and on-trend restaurants to forfeit the customers’ ability to book. Walk-ins became the preferred practise for groups less than 10, as this provided the operators with more control over the timing and group sizes and a safeguard to ensure a full venue each service period, through eradicating the risk of no-shows and last-minute cancellations.

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Justifiably, many customers felt aggrieved and were unimpressed with this approach: Securing a location for a meal became a flip of the coin, planning catch ups with friends became more difficult to negotiate and competition for spots grew as lines would start congregating outside of venues from 5pm most evenings.

Disgruntled customers… well maybe, but it didn’t stop them from conforming to this new way of operating. For many years and still to this day in certain establishments, it has just become part of the theatre of dining out and engenders a sense of exclusivity that has become widely accepted by the customer as the price to pay for the desired experience.

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Over time though, new to market concepts would take the spotlight and many operators chose to soften their stance and became more accepting of special circumstances. Some even redesigned their seating layouts to become more modular and flexible and some just reverted back to old practices and accepted bookings in faith that customers would uphold their end of the bargain.

For some this has worked out well, whilst for others, it has not, especially those in less high traffic locations, that don’t come with the guaranteed footfall of busy dining precincts and CBD centres. From experience, last minute cancellations and no-shows can be soul destroying for a small business, with food prep and staffing numbers confirmed in advance to service a full restaurant, but unavoidably not required due to reduced covers on the night. It is important to remember that a seat in a restaurant is a perishable commodity – if you don’t show up for your Thursday evening booking, the restaurant can’t re-sell it on Friday.

I have had customers who have booked 5 restaurants a month or two in advance for the same night, only to decide on the day what they feel like eating before cancelling their remaining four reservations just prior to the booking time. These behaviours have sprouted from the fear of missing out and by customers not understanding the consequences of their selfish actions. They may possibly be in direct response to the industries preference to gain greater control over their table inventory and restrict bookings, but either way they are unscrupulous and inexcusable and removing this booking loophole needs to be stopped.

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The introduction of online booking sites such as TheFork (nee Dimmi), Open Table (nee Book a Restaurant), Quandoo and others, whilst helpful in getting the restaurant’s name out to the market, also enhances customers ease of booking and equally the ease of cancelling with no direct contact with the restaurant. These are not to blame for the challenges the industry is facing but have created an indirect booking process that in my opinion has led to greater number of cancellations because there is a lack of a direct connection and therefore less commitment between customer and restaurant.

This brings us to 2020, a year where the industry has been absolutely devastated, where any opportunity to welcome customers to your establishment is an opportunity to recoup just a small percent of lost revenue, incurred by months of lock down and a time where each individual seat allowed in the venue comes at an absolute premium and must be respected for its value. Government restrictions imposed on internal seating numbers and restricted time per setting has ensured that each customer booking is highly valued and indispensable in terms of generating the required revenue to successfully operate in such a challenging climate.

It has come to my attention that a Melbourne restaurant has recently posted a photo of their booking list, to show all their booking cancellations for a single day. It amounts to a total of 59 people across lunch and dinner. This volume of lost business is devastating, and the industry cannot tolerate this type of unprincipled behaviour.

Booking cancellations at a Melbourne restaurant

The only way to prevent this type of unreasonable customer conduct is that all customers must have a booking, for all bookings to pay an upfront deposit and for all customers to accept that this will be the mainstream moving forwards for the industry. Not because operators are unreasonable, greedy or arrogant, but because the industry’s hand has been forced by customers choosing to do the wrong thing. A stance must be taken now or risk the real chance of further devastation and the ultimate demise of so many great restaurants and cafes around the country.

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