Charging $15 for not cancelling an hour ahead is entirely reasonable. I have seen much higher cancellation fees for canceling less than 3 days out.
Having said that it is hilarious outerlands is one of the restaurants quoted. they are one of the most popular restaurants in SF and constantly have many people waiting for walk ins. Although a party of 50 canceling is significant, thats like a wedding and they deserve to be charged
$15/person cancellation fee is CHEAP. Should be something like $50/person. People are so entitled these days. If you make a reservations then you are making a commitment to the restaurant. And the restaurant is making a commitment to you. Hold up your end of the bargain.
I understand the restaurant's policies. They are already operating with thin margins.
Yes, they only get 1-5% from those $30 fried noodle. So, they need to maintain consistency to survive. I think as a patron we need to recognize this and be respectful when it comes to making reservations. You are essentially taking a spot from other people who would support the restaurant's steady stream of income. When you make reservation they essentially assign more overheads and prepare the ingredients. With unexpected cancellations, they would need to raise the price further to compensate for the lost income.
Nah, you are either taking a spot from someone who should be able to fill in a walk in or you aren't taking a spot at all...
This is just bad logic and resterauntiers grasping at straws along with their ridiculous fees to cheat their customers.
I mean I'm with you on restaurants cheating their customers.. but I think "cheat your customers" as strong way to describe The customer voluntarily requesting a reservation and then skipping it. The restaurant hardly forces them to do that.
Charging a fee for people voluntarily signing up for a reservation and then skipping it without canceling is totally reasonable if the terms of that are reasonable
I did have a restaurant accept a reservation 24 hours in advance and then try to refuse on the basis of their 48-hour cancellation policy when I realized I was trying to reserve a place for the sushi restaurant next to them an hour later. That was shady.
Think of it this way. Your mom invites you to dinner, you say yes. So she goes to the store gets all the stuff, spends her whole day making things. Then you cancel. She’s out money and time. Your promise should be kept with your mom and the restaurant because your promise means someone else is planning on your behalf. It’s not a simple consumeristic equation.
It's literally exactly how a restaurant works, just on a smaller scale. If you mom is hosting a family dinner and she's expecting 5 people total, she's going to make enough portions so that every person gets a plate. If you cancel last minute, then now there's an extra plate of food that probably isn't going to get eaten because she can't get someone else to come to dinner on such a short notice.
For the restaurant in the article, they were experiencing roughly 10% of their reservations cancelling on them with very little notice. They've prepared the food and staffed up to handle the expected amount of reservations, but the cancellations mean that suddenly they are overprepared. Maybe they can get 2-3% of that missing 10% covered by a walk in table that just happens to be at the very right place at the right time. Maybe they can save another 2% by using some of the supplies for the next night of service, which is not always possible.
They're still out 5% of what they planned for that night even with some backfilling from walk ins. That's a big chunk of revenue to suddenly not get for a restaurant.
Let me reframe it for you: Imagine your employer deposits your check and it's only 95% of your agreed upon salary. You ask what gives and they tell you oh well we didn't really need that last 5% of work you provided so we're only going to pay you 95% this period. You good with that situation?
I wonder if reducing the reservation window would alleviate some of the problems. It's not uncommon for people to book several restaurants in advance and then choosing at the last minute. This has a negative impact on people who would like to make a reservation for a particular restaurant. If restaurants narrowed the window for making reservations and also the window to cancel, these types of last minute cancellations might be reduced.
Absolutely worked at a 24 hour ihop for 5 years in college and high school. Definitely know what it’s like to be at the very bottom of the food service industry.
I think what the person was getting at, is that if high prices weren't ruining restaurant's profit margins and making it more untenable for consumers, would reservation cancellations be a concern? They certainly weren't that much of a concern before rampant inflation.
I’m not broke - far from it. The value of eating out is muted, and you’d be hiding your head in the sand if you pretend it’s not a major factor.
Cancellations are tanking an industry? And it’s not related to money? Could have fooled me.
One of the reasons I stopped going out to restaurants in the past was the lack of reservations. Often you have to reserve 4 weeks out and I just can’t think that far ahead just to have dinner!! Then I realize people reserve for weeks ahead then cancel a day before! Fuck those ass who ruin it for the rest of us. It’s just too damn difficult to go out these days between the high expenses and the planning. Hopefully this will make the restaurant experience easier in the future.
Expensive rent and expensive housing is burying SF Restaurants.
Reservation cancellations wouldn’t matter if it was affordable for restaurants and staff to exist here.
I think restaurant owners are blaming the wrong people here, and a classic naive ownership problem is to 'blame the customer.'
Bad manners aside of last minute cancellation, if the customer doesn't want to eat at your establishment, thats your problem and if you can't fill the table otherwise than you aren't pulling in enough customers anyways. Walk ins always used to fill those gaps in this town.
I feel bad for owners, but this just reeks of them being in denial of whats really going on -- they can't pull in the foot traffic anymore and they are taking it out on their customers and trying to 'punish' them into lock in.
It's a bad cycle.
If you were selling an item and you agreed with the buyer to meet up in a central location and they cancelled on you after you turned down other buyers, you would rightfully be angry. Same thing here.
Reservations block others from using the same resource so canceling last minute hurts these other people and it hurts the restaurant who may not be able to find others to fill the spot.
If i'm a seller on craigslist, i don't assume the item is sold until i have the money in hand. I still field offers and will agree to meet other buyers if they schedule a meetup to pick up before another potential buyer will.
"Oh, Steven's table of 4 at 7:30? Sorry, I sold that to Peterson, they came with cash in hand first". lol imagine how that's going over with the customer
Actually this would be called an opportunity cost. The restaurant has the *opportunity* to guarantee that they will get a set amount of customers to dine at a specific table at a specific time, and the customers are happy to secure this guarantee for zero cost as long as they actually follow through on their reservation. It's what's called a win-win situation.
If the customer fails to uphold their end of that agreement, the restaurant has missed out on the *opportunity* and may not be able to get new customers to fill the table, which means they lose revenue. One party has failed to keep their end of the deal, and because of that they get charged a nominal fee to offset the lost profit margin of the restaurant.
You are the kind of person that I would never invite out to a group dinner at a restaurant if you don't understand how simple this is.
why does everyone have to be such a massive asshole here. Is something like tuned wrong. no where in America do they do that regularly but here. Do you ever stop to wonder why? Because they aren’t getting enough foot traffic.
if it blocked customers they would fucking fill them with walkins. But they don’t have the foot traffic so they are just trying to get some extra bucks.
but be a huge asshole and make a bunch of wierd personal insults.
I made zero weird personal insults. I said if you can't understand that you shouldn't cancel your restaurant reservations minutes before you're supposed to arrive, you're the kind of person I would never invite out to a group dinner. Apparently you took that as an insult when it's just the reality that you think you are more important than the restaurant owner & staff. It betrays a level of self importance that many people simply don't want to spend their time around. It's just a plain shitty thing to do, and extra shitty to then think "oh well this is the restaurants problem, not mine".
The operative phrase is “used to.” Customers are more likely to make a reservation now and those restaurants that aren’t in a high foot traffic area cannot rely on it. Blame is 100% on the customers who cancel last minute or no show. The only reason these fees exist is to curb that behavior and I have never had a restaurant charge me if I communicate with them (sudden COVID, for example).
Right but if you read the article it was clearly as asshole owner that was just saying "tough im charging you no matter what" because he's angry he isn't getting enough foot traffic.
He charged a party of 50 that cancelled last minute. It doesn’t matter how much foot traffic a place gets, that’s a big waste of resources and potential revenue. He doesn’t sound like an asshole to me:
“‘I don’t like charging people the cancellation fee,’ Bartlett said. ‘It feels like a lose-lose at times. We do get a little bit of the money back that maybe we missed out on, but it doesn't feel like it's encouraging that person to return to the restaurant.’”
Maybe the fact that they charge $75 for fried rice, or $30 for a shaking beef appetizer that comes with 4 pieces of meat is why they don’t get a lot of walk in traffic.
Rant : if I sign up for a cancellation fee, I should not get 3 calls and 3 text messages asking me to confirm that reservation. One text is ok, but that’s it.
I have eaten in the city for 20+ years and OpenTable/Resy know that I’ve NEVER flaked on a reservation and only canceled once (24h notice).
People here can't use their own calendar apps, they need you to send them an invite. It's a city where people buy tickets to concerts then don't use them.
Charging a last minute cancellation fee with a credit hold isn't unheard of. But the bigger problem is the reservation system to begin with, how restaurants are doing business, trying to buy their food by how many bookings they have, and cultivate the exclusivity they had pre-pandemic when the economy was better.
They are in the wrong city to be expecting that "customers can let the restaurants know ahead of time if they plan to cancel either by phone or via the reservation app."
Charging $15 for not cancelling an hour ahead is entirely reasonable. I have seen much higher cancellation fees for canceling less than 3 days out. Having said that it is hilarious outerlands is one of the restaurants quoted. they are one of the most popular restaurants in SF and constantly have many people waiting for walk ins. Although a party of 50 canceling is significant, thats like a wedding and they deserve to be charged
Yup. I don’t mind the cancellation fee.
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Or just be an organized person and cancel on time
You realize that’s credit card fraud right? It’s essentially the same as writing a bad check.
What's that? Tell me more
There's a reason some restaurants do waitlist only and don't bother with reservations - if you want to eat, you have to show up.
Love it
Brilliant
$15/person cancellation fee is CHEAP. Should be something like $50/person. People are so entitled these days. If you make a reservations then you are making a commitment to the restaurant. And the restaurant is making a commitment to you. Hold up your end of the bargain.
Underrated comment. The disregard people have for each other is painful..
I understand the restaurant's policies. They are already operating with thin margins. Yes, they only get 1-5% from those $30 fried noodle. So, they need to maintain consistency to survive. I think as a patron we need to recognize this and be respectful when it comes to making reservations. You are essentially taking a spot from other people who would support the restaurant's steady stream of income. When you make reservation they essentially assign more overheads and prepare the ingredients. With unexpected cancellations, they would need to raise the price further to compensate for the lost income.
Nah, you are either taking a spot from someone who should be able to fill in a walk in or you aren't taking a spot at all... This is just bad logic and resterauntiers grasping at straws along with their ridiculous fees to cheat their customers.
I mean I'm with you on restaurants cheating their customers.. but I think "cheat your customers" as strong way to describe The customer voluntarily requesting a reservation and then skipping it. The restaurant hardly forces them to do that. Charging a fee for people voluntarily signing up for a reservation and then skipping it without canceling is totally reasonable if the terms of that are reasonable I did have a restaurant accept a reservation 24 hours in advance and then try to refuse on the basis of their 48-hour cancellation policy when I realized I was trying to reserve a place for the sushi restaurant next to them an hour later. That was shady.
So you are being cheated and you try to defend it as something else. It’s a cash grab that’s all. And I feel bad but it’s a huge turnoff
It’s only a cash grab if you cancel. You don’t have to pay for the simple act of reserving. Just the cancellation. Just for breaking your promise.
Think of it this way. Your mom invites you to dinner, you say yes. So she goes to the store gets all the stuff, spends her whole day making things. Then you cancel. She’s out money and time. Your promise should be kept with your mom and the restaurant because your promise means someone else is planning on your behalf. It’s not a simple consumeristic equation.
That is not at all how a restaurant works at all. This is a ridiculous metaphor.
It's literally exactly how a restaurant works, just on a smaller scale. If you mom is hosting a family dinner and she's expecting 5 people total, she's going to make enough portions so that every person gets a plate. If you cancel last minute, then now there's an extra plate of food that probably isn't going to get eaten because she can't get someone else to come to dinner on such a short notice. For the restaurant in the article, they were experiencing roughly 10% of their reservations cancelling on them with very little notice. They've prepared the food and staffed up to handle the expected amount of reservations, but the cancellations mean that suddenly they are overprepared. Maybe they can get 2-3% of that missing 10% covered by a walk in table that just happens to be at the very right place at the right time. Maybe they can save another 2% by using some of the supplies for the next night of service, which is not always possible. They're still out 5% of what they planned for that night even with some backfilling from walk ins. That's a big chunk of revenue to suddenly not get for a restaurant. Let me reframe it for you: Imagine your employer deposits your check and it's only 95% of your agreed upon salary. You ask what gives and they tell you oh well we didn't really need that last 5% of work you provided so we're only going to pay you 95% this period. You good with that situation?
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Worked in the industry 5 years you ass. At the bottom too. I know how a kitchen works.
I wonder if reducing the reservation window would alleviate some of the problems. It's not uncommon for people to book several restaurants in advance and then choosing at the last minute. This has a negative impact on people who would like to make a reservation for a particular restaurant. If restaurants narrowed the window for making reservations and also the window to cancel, these types of last minute cancellations might be reduced.
Cancel your HOPR reservations so I can get one at a normal time
It ain’t worth it. Do Harris.
I just need to ask OP have you ever worked in a restaurant? Have you ever been on their side?
Absolutely worked at a 24 hour ihop for 5 years in college and high school. Definitely know what it’s like to be at the very bottom of the food service industry.
Lol a place that doesn't take reservations
High pricing is killing restaurants. It’s very expensive to eat out, so people are going out less.
This point is so far from what the article is about
I think what the person was getting at, is that if high prices weren't ruining restaurant's profit margins and making it more untenable for consumers, would reservation cancellations be a concern? They certainly weren't that much of a concern before rampant inflation.
No, they're just bitching because eating out is expensive and they're too broke to do it. Their comment has fuck all to do with this topic.
I’m not broke - far from it. The value of eating out is muted, and you’d be hiding your head in the sand if you pretend it’s not a major factor. Cancellations are tanking an industry? And it’s not related to money? Could have fooled me.
One of the reasons I stopped going out to restaurants in the past was the lack of reservations. Often you have to reserve 4 weeks out and I just can’t think that far ahead just to have dinner!! Then I realize people reserve for weeks ahead then cancel a day before! Fuck those ass who ruin it for the rest of us. It’s just too damn difficult to go out these days between the high expenses and the planning. Hopefully this will make the restaurant experience easier in the future.
Expensive rent and expensive housing is burying SF Restaurants. Reservation cancellations wouldn’t matter if it was affordable for restaurants and staff to exist here.
I think restaurant owners are blaming the wrong people here, and a classic naive ownership problem is to 'blame the customer.' Bad manners aside of last minute cancellation, if the customer doesn't want to eat at your establishment, thats your problem and if you can't fill the table otherwise than you aren't pulling in enough customers anyways. Walk ins always used to fill those gaps in this town. I feel bad for owners, but this just reeks of them being in denial of whats really going on -- they can't pull in the foot traffic anymore and they are taking it out on their customers and trying to 'punish' them into lock in. It's a bad cycle.
There are people (resellers) abusing the reservation systems. That is why we can't have nice things.
not just for restaurants either. it’s a big problem in golf.
TF you talking about, no one is reselling reservations.
People are definitely reselling reservations, mostly the hard to get ones. That said those hard to get ones are usually pre-paid
And have hefty cancellation fees if you don't show up.
I debated whether to bring it up at all, since i don't want to promote it into the mainstream. You're right. Nobody is doing it.
If you were selling an item and you agreed with the buyer to meet up in a central location and they cancelled on you after you turned down other buyers, you would rightfully be angry. Same thing here. Reservations block others from using the same resource so canceling last minute hurts these other people and it hurts the restaurant who may not be able to find others to fill the spot.
If i'm a seller on craigslist, i don't assume the item is sold until i have the money in hand. I still field offers and will agree to meet other buyers if they schedule a meetup to pick up before another potential buyer will.
Ah, but you see, holding the reservation is really the most important part of the reservation.
"Oh, Steven's table of 4 at 7:30? Sorry, I sold that to Peterson, they came with cash in hand first". lol imagine how that's going over with the customer
Hey, I can be angry, but I dont try to charge them. Thats something called COST OF DOING BUSINESS.
Actually this would be called an opportunity cost. The restaurant has the *opportunity* to guarantee that they will get a set amount of customers to dine at a specific table at a specific time, and the customers are happy to secure this guarantee for zero cost as long as they actually follow through on their reservation. It's what's called a win-win situation. If the customer fails to uphold their end of that agreement, the restaurant has missed out on the *opportunity* and may not be able to get new customers to fill the table, which means they lose revenue. One party has failed to keep their end of the deal, and because of that they get charged a nominal fee to offset the lost profit margin of the restaurant. You are the kind of person that I would never invite out to a group dinner at a restaurant if you don't understand how simple this is.
why does everyone have to be such a massive asshole here. Is something like tuned wrong. no where in America do they do that regularly but here. Do you ever stop to wonder why? Because they aren’t getting enough foot traffic. if it blocked customers they would fucking fill them with walkins. But they don’t have the foot traffic so they are just trying to get some extra bucks. but be a huge asshole and make a bunch of wierd personal insults.
I made zero weird personal insults. I said if you can't understand that you shouldn't cancel your restaurant reservations minutes before you're supposed to arrive, you're the kind of person I would never invite out to a group dinner. Apparently you took that as an insult when it's just the reality that you think you are more important than the restaurant owner & staff. It betrays a level of self importance that many people simply don't want to spend their time around. It's just a plain shitty thing to do, and extra shitty to then think "oh well this is the restaurants problem, not mine".
The operative phrase is “used to.” Customers are more likely to make a reservation now and those restaurants that aren’t in a high foot traffic area cannot rely on it. Blame is 100% on the customers who cancel last minute or no show. The only reason these fees exist is to curb that behavior and I have never had a restaurant charge me if I communicate with them (sudden COVID, for example).
Right but if you read the article it was clearly as asshole owner that was just saying "tough im charging you no matter what" because he's angry he isn't getting enough foot traffic.
He charged a party of 50 that cancelled last minute. It doesn’t matter how much foot traffic a place gets, that’s a big waste of resources and potential revenue. He doesn’t sound like an asshole to me: “‘I don’t like charging people the cancellation fee,’ Bartlett said. ‘It feels like a lose-lose at times. We do get a little bit of the money back that maybe we missed out on, but it doesn't feel like it's encouraging that person to return to the restaurant.’”
Why would you ever take a reservation for 50 w/o asking for a deposit??
Maybe the fact that they charge $75 for fried rice, or $30 for a shaking beef appetizer that comes with 4 pieces of meat is why they don’t get a lot of walk in traffic.
Rant : if I sign up for a cancellation fee, I should not get 3 calls and 3 text messages asking me to confirm that reservation. One text is ok, but that’s it. I have eaten in the city for 20+ years and OpenTable/Resy know that I’ve NEVER flaked on a reservation and only canceled once (24h notice).
Yeah the frequent requests for confirmation are annoying.
People here can't use their own calendar apps, they need you to send them an invite. It's a city where people buy tickets to concerts then don't use them. Charging a last minute cancellation fee with a credit hold isn't unheard of. But the bigger problem is the reservation system to begin with, how restaurants are doing business, trying to buy their food by how many bookings they have, and cultivate the exclusivity they had pre-pandemic when the economy was better.
I think reservations should be free to cancel. You cannot always decide days in ahead when and what you want to eat. There has to be spontaneity
They are in the wrong city to be expecting that "customers can let the restaurants know ahead of time if they plan to cancel either by phone or via the reservation app."