Thoughts on Dealing With No-Shows

For three weeks in November of 1986, as a promotional device to introduce the new luncheon menu at his Budapest Hungarian Restaurant on Fairfax (which has since closed), restaurateur Russell Friedman served free lunch to all comers--soup or salad, entree, and coffee or tea, for nothing, nada , zilch. . . . Friedman asked only that customers pay a 15% gratuity on what the cost of their meal would have been--and that they come in by reservation only. He served nearly 300 free lunches a day during the promotion. “This is one way to cope with the no-show problem,” he said at the time. “We’ve had less than a 2% no-show rate.”

No-shows are those would-be diners who make reservations at restaurants and then neither honor nor cancel them. They are a major problem in the food service industry today. The restaurant business hasn’t been exactly booming in America recently anyway--and tables that sit empty because they’ve been reserved and not claimed can be a serious financial drain on restaurants with already marginal profits.

But no-shows are a fact of life--and if any restaurateur doubts it, then read again what Friedman had to say. He was boasting that the no-show rate for his free-lunch program was very low--but he still had no-shows. At least four people a day, failed to show up for a free meal.

When the trade publication Nation’s Restaurant News conducted a call-in telephone survey on the no-show issue last year, a number of possible solutions to the problem were proposed. Some of them make sense, and some of them don’t. The key proposals were these:

Keep logs of no-shows and don’t accept future reservations from them. Sure, but what about people who use phony names--either the first time or subsequently, or both? What about people with the same or similar names? How can a restaurateur really verify who’s who? Voice prints? Diner registration numbers?

Don’t hold tables for longer than 15 or 20 minutes. As I’ve written before in this column, I think putting time limits on reservations is perfectly reasonable. Didn’t your mother ever tell you to call whoever was expecting you if you were going to be more than 15 minutes late? But time limits ought to work both ways. Diners with reservations shouldn’t be kept waiting more than 15 or 20 minutes for a table once they do show up--and, I think, ought to “cancel” their own reservations and go somewhere else to eat if they are kept waiting.

Accept reservations for only half the seats to minimize potential losses. Fair enough, as long as your restaurant is in a high-traffic area, accessible to a walk-in trade.

Don’t accept reservations at all, but put customers’ names on a preferred seating list, giving them priority status for tables when they arrive. Also fair enough--though I’m not sure that customers at fancy, pricey restaurants would accept the practice.

Call customers to confirm reservations. This, of course, is already being widely done. Restaurateurs tell me, though, that sometimes people still don’t show up--even if they’ve confirmed their plans by phone a scant hour or so before their reservation. And how many restaurateurs are willing to turn away a good customer, or even a potentially good one, just because they can’t reach him earlier in the day? Certainly not those who are having trouble filling their restaurant in the first place.

Require deposits for parties of six or more. OK, if you can get away with it. Holding a table for two people who don’t show up is an annoyance to the restaurateur; holding one for a party of six or eight can mean the difference between a modest profit for the evening and an outright loss.

Take credit card numbers with reservations, then charge a penalty fee to those who neither arrive nor cancel. This is clearly the most controversial of these proposals. Hotels do it regularly, of course; if you guarantee a reservation with a credit card and then don’t show up, you will be charged for a one-night stay, in most cases. Hotel customers seem to accept this. Will restaurant customers? And would the practice be legal? Would it make good business sense? (Stay tuned. Next week, with the help of an attorney who is himself an avid restaurant-goer and an investor in top local restaurants, we’ll attempt to answer those questions.)

RESTAURANT NOTES FROM AROUND THE NATION: Piatti has opened in Montecito, on the site of the old Cafe del Sol--an offshoot of the original Piatti in the Napa Valley. Both are owned by Claude Rouas and Bob Harmon, also proprietors of Auberge de Soleil in St. Helena and of Montecito’s San Ysidro Ranch. Donna Scala, executive chef and co-owner of both Piattis, will cook at the Montecito unit at least temporarily. . . . Andreas Hellrigl has taken over New York’s elegant Palio restaurant from its founder, Tony May. May imported Hellrigl from the acclaimed Villa Mozart in Merano, Italy, to cook at Palio, with Hellrigl retaining ownership of that hotel and of Andreas restaurant in the same town. May runs three other Italian restaurants in New York--La Camelia, Sandro, and the recently opened San Domenico--and reports that he is bowing out of Palio in order to concentrate on them. . . . Closer to home, Marcel Frantz, former owner and chef of Aux Delices in Sherman Oaks, has opened a French-style takeout place in Woodland Hills, called Paris-Brest--which is the name both of a famous French bicycle race and a famous French pastry.

DOG YEARS: In noting here recently that Art’s Chili Dogs in Los Angeles was celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, it should have been also noted that another tenacious local establishment with a similar menu, the famous Pink’s on La Brea Avenue is 50 this year, as well.

DATEBOOK: According to the Beverly Hills Restaurant Assn., there are more than 126 restaurants in the city of 33,000 residents. That means, the association estimates, there is about one restaurant for every 262 persons. Some of the best of them will participate in today’s Beverly Hills Food Festival, including the Bistro Garden, Ed Debevic’s, California Pizza Kitchen, The Grill, Il Giardino, Kate Mantilini, RJ’s and Yanks. The site is Roxbury Park, and several charities will receive a portion of the proceeds. . . . The Siamese Princess spotlights the wines of Flora Springs on Tuesday, with a five-course Thai dinner, priced at $45 per person. . . . And the Crocodile Cafe in Pasadena collaborates with the Pasadena Playhouse on a benefit buffet dinner for the theater called “Animal Croc-kers,” in celebration of the opening night of “Groucho: A Life in Revue.” Wine and beer are included in the $50-per-person tariff.