Taking somebody’s word that they’ll be at the table when they said they’ll be can be dodgy business.
And now LA eaterie Red Medicine is using their Twitter account for something a little different. They have recently started naming names of no-shows at the restaurant on the social media website, according to Consumerist.com.
“Invariably, the assholes who decide to no-show, or cancel 20 minutes before their reservation (because one of their friends made a reservation somewhere else) ruin restaurants (as a whole) for the people who make a reservation and do their best to honor it,” the owner of the restaurant wrote in Eater LA.
“Either restaurants are forced to overbook and make the guests (that actually showed up) wait, or they do what we do, turn away guests for some prime-time slots because they’re booked, and then have empty tables.”
He said the business has previously tried requiring a credit card number to hold reservations, but “there’s a contingent of people who just won’t put down a card, regardless of if they plan on coming or not.”
When asked if he would do away with reservations altogether and have diners into the restaurant on a first come, first serve basis, he said they would be missing out on the business from special occasion dining where customers want to know for definite their table is booked.
“[It] really wasn’t fair to the guests who took a 6:15 or 9:30 reservation instead of the 7:30 or 8:00 they wanted,” he explained about those who didn’t have the courtesy to call and cancel.
“I was frustrated, so I blew them up. They probably don’t know, and if they know, they probably don’t care (or they would have come or called in the first place), but such is life.”
Such is life Red Medicine, but this is a plan that will definitely cause controversy…
