If Restaurant Reservations 101 was a freshman class at CU Boulder, our collective final grade as diners would be a C at best. That means many of us get an A: We know how to properly make and cancel a reservation.
Sadly, some of us get an F. We are the no-shows and the folks who cancel five minutes before we’re supposed to be seated. We’re the inconsiderate ones who show up with six diners for a four-top reservation, or make multiple reservations at local restaurants and fail to cancel the ones we don’t need.
Local restaurateurs love their customers and say cancellations and no-shows are a normal part of business. But problems with reservations have reportedly only increased since patrons returned after the pandemic.
Did diners forget how to behave?
As the co-owner of one of America’s most celebrated fine dining destinations, Bobby Stuckey is an evangelist for hospitality. His Frasca Food & Wine in Boulder (and local sister eateries) have picked up a bundle of prestigious James Beard and Michelin awards for service, food and wine.
You would think guests at Frasca would know better.
“Even some of our family and friends of Frasca don’t understand how the reservation system works,” Stuckey says.
“We open at 5 p.m. and have only about 18 tables in the restaurant,” he says. “Our guests are usually with us for two to three hours. Everybody can’t be seated at 7 p.m. on a Friday night.”
According to Stuckey, no-calls (not canceling reservations) and no-shows are bad, but last-minute cancellations are almost worse.
“We understand that sometimes there are emergencies or flight delays,” he says. “But when they ask us to hold a table, then guests have responsibilities, too.”
Given the world-class ingredients the eatery uses, the costs can be enormous.
“We order things like fresh whole halibut based on a certain number of expected guests. If 20% of our guests don’t show up, it can go to waste. It’s bad for the environment,” Stuckey says. “At a Michelin-starred restaurant like this, we are booked many weeks ahead. There are not groups of diners waiting at the door for a table.”
For its reservations policy, Frasca takes a $50 credit card deposit — the fee is subtracted from the cost of the meal.
“It’s amazing how many times a no-call or no-show tries to argue to get the deposit back,” he says. “If you have NBA tickets and decide not to show up, you won’t get a refund.”
Party of ghosts
Serving strong margaritas and platters of burritos, the Rio Grande Mexican Restaurant has opened locations in Fort Collins, Greeley, Lone Tree and Denver. The Boulder Rio opened in 1989.
While navigating new challenges, the longtime COO of the Rio eateries, Steve Richter, says some things never change.
“We just know that some people aren’t going to show up, especially on big weekends,” he says. “We know we’re going to have a certain amount of cancellations.”
“Last weekend, we had a party of 35 not show up at the Rio in Lone Tree,” he says. “We were staffed up to handle it, so it was tough on the crew. There were servers sitting and waiting to work.”
According to Richter, the problem in recent years has been diners who use apps to make multiple reservations at different restaurants all over town.
“For big weekend nights, they all make five reservations. Then, at the last minute, they choose the one they want to go to. We don’t mind that people make multiple reservations, as long as they let us know … even the morning of the same day.”
Richter says that charging a reservation deposit isn’t right for the Rio. “It’s just this funny game you play in the restaurant business, always guessing which people are going to show up and what they will order.”
He notes that the Rio Grande restaurants didn’t take reservations until the early 2000s, but now they are a necessity. “When I’m looking to go out to dinner, I want a reservation so I know I don’t have to worry about it,” he says.
Screwing the staff
At Farow, Niwot’s award-winning farm-to-table restaurant, filling the tables requires a mind-boggling planning algorithm. Lisa Balcom, Farow’s co-owner, describes her daily dance.
“In order not to overbook the restaurant, I look at how many two-tops and four-tops I have,” she says. “A table of two usually takes about an hour and a half [to dine], and a table of four typically two hours. You have to schedule it so that the servers and the kitchen aren’t overwhelmed.”
Farow reminds diners of their reservation 24 hours in advance. If the staff haven’t gotten a confirmation, they text or call them that day to confirm.
According to Balcom, when diners cancel reservations five minutes before they are supposed to be seated, the repercussions for a small bistro can be enormous.
“My response is: ‘Well, great. I just told five other people they couldn’t come in because I didn’t have a table, when I really did,’” she says. “That screws me over. It screws my team over, too. If they’re not selling food, they’re not making as much money, and I’m not paying my rent.”
When the math ain’t mathin’
Jarred Russell, executive chef at Fruition, says his restaurant has an average of one no-show table on a weeknight and two on weekends.
“When a six-top no-shows, it means we had to turn away six guests,” Russell says. “We told them ‘No.’ Each diner at Fruition spends about $125 per meal or more. That’s a lot of money to lose for a small restaurant. It’s selfish to no-show.”
No-shows and last-minute cancellations are challenges, but two other common diner behaviors frustrate Russell the most.
“Showing up with more people than you put on your reservation is pretty annoying and happens a lot,” he says. “It isn’t as simple as adding a couple more seats. It means pulling together another table we may not have available.”
The other dining faux pas is not letting the restaurant know about any dietary restrictions. Like Stuckey, Russell is an alumnus of Napa’s celebrated French Laundry Restaurant. Meals are carefully and thoughtfully prepared with diners’ preferences and restrictions in mind.
“They show up and say, ‘Oh, I can’t eat red meat, gluten or dairy,’” Russell says. “If we knew, we could have made this a lot nicer. All they had to do was fill out the profile online. It maybe takes an extra 45 seconds.”
Fruition uses a reservation system that takes a $10 credit card deposit when a table is booked. It is deducted from the bill at the end of the meal.
Another significant challenge facing local restaurants is that most of us will only dine during the Goldilocks hours. In other countries, dining late into the night is more common.
“It’s really frustrating because around here there is a very, very small window of dining time,” Farow’s Balcom says. “If it’s not between 5 and 7:30 p.m., they won’t come out. You tell them ‘eight o’clock,’ and they look at you like you told them ‘two in the morning.’”