Table for four? Not so fast, pal

Ask any serious restaurateur about his most nagging and costly problems, and I’ll bet that within 30 seconds, you’ll hear these two words:

“No-shows.”

“I’ve been in this country 20 years, and this is the thing that people in the restaurant business complain about the most,” says Donato Poto, manager at Bastide in West Hollywood. “People make a reservation and we call back and confirm -- sometimes two or three times -- and still they don’t show up and they don’t call to cancel.”

The problem is getting so bad, Poto says, that Bastide has instituted a tough new policy: If you want a reservation and you’re not a frequent customer, you have to sign a form agreeing to pay $100 a head for any no-show or cancellation with less than 24 hours’ notice.

Requiring diners to sign an expensive “contract” may be the most extreme step to combat the profit-draining boorishness of people who make reservations -- sometimes multiple reservations -- and neither show up nor cancel, but it’s far from the only one.

Melisse and Patina now require credit card numbers at the time of reservation for parties of five or more. Alex and Matsuhisa require a credit card number for parties of six or more; Balboa, Rockenwagner, Asia de Cuba and Brentwood Restaurant & Lounge for parties of eight or more; Lucques and Chinois on Main for parties larger than 10; and Michael’s for parties of 12.

At Aubergine and Paladar Bistro Cubano, reservationists ask for credit card numbers on all weekend reservations, regardless of the size of the party. If you don’t show up or call to cancel, you’re subject to a $50-a-head charge at Aubergine, $20 a head at Paladar.

Most of the other restaurants have a no-show fee of $25 to $50 per person, although -- when pressed -- most concede that they’re reluctant to actually impose the fee for fear of offending their customers and triggering an ugly, three-way fight with them and their credit card companies.

That’s exactly what happened a few months ago at Rockenwagner in Santa Monica, after a party of 18 failed to show up on a Saturday night. They had given their credit card number, confirmed their reservation and agreed to pay a $20-a-head fee if they didn’t show up.

“They asked for all kinds of special table settings and special treatment, and then they didn’t come and my restaurant was one-quarter empty all night on a very busy night,” Hans Rockenwagner says. “I was so angry that for the first time, I actually put through the no-show charge. They challenged it, though, and the credit card company said that since we didn’t have anything from them in writing, we had to refund their money.”

The threat of a no-show fee is “an empty threat,” Rockenwagner says, but he and other restaurateurs agree that just using it -- and insisting on a credit card number -- is usually enough to make people take their reservations seriously and to give them an incentive to call and cancel.

Some restaurateurs are afraid even to make that threat, though. They say there’s nothing they can do about no-shows without upsetting customers, and “everyone’s scared to death of losing any customer,” as Mike Green, general manager of Pacific Dining Car, puts it.

A stick, then a carrot

They wouldn’t lose me.

I’d happily give a restaurant my credit card number and authorize them to charge me if I didn’t show and didn’t call. Who knows -- maybe if every restaurant did that, they could cut no-shows enough to increase their profits -- and maybe even lower their wine prices accordingly.

Besides, on their busiest days of the year -- New Year’s Eve, Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day -- many restaurants have, for several years, insisted on credit card numbers and authorization to impose no-show fees for all reservations. Still, they worry about alienating customers on other nights.

At Melisse, Josiah Citrin, the chef-proprietor, says he’ll charge no-shows 50% of the $68 prix fixe for dinner -- then send them a Melisse gift certificate in the same amount, “hoping we won’t lose them as customers forever.”

Brentwood Restaurant & Lounge takes a similar tack, imposing a $25 no-show fee, then sending a $25 gift certificate for the restaurant.

Bastide has the strictest and most expensive no-show policy, and Poto has actually made it even tougher in recent weeks.

“In the beginning, we just asked for credit card authorizations for first-timers and parties of four or more,” he says, “but we’re a small restaurant -- our maximum is 80 or 90 people a night -- and even a couple of parties of two that don’t show can hurt us. So now we do it for everyone except people who’ve come often enough that we know they’ll always show up.”

Poto doesn’t just ask for a credit card number over the phone; he faxes a form to the customer and has the customer sign it and fax it back -- written authorization for the $100-a-head no-show charge to a credit card. In three months, he says, only four parties who returned the restaurant’s form have failed to show up -- and they were charged accordingly.

That’s a lot better than the 5% to 10% nightly no-show factor that many restaurants routinely report.

Most restaurants operate on a small profit margin, and David Rosoff, proprietor of Opaline, echoes many of his colleagues when he says two tables of no-shows a night can be “the difference between a profitable night and losing money.

“Based on your reservations, you’ve bought product for those people and you’ve staffed for those people and when they don’t show up, the tables sit empty and you’re left with your pants around your ankles,” he says. “Over a year, that’s hundreds of thousands of dollars down the drain.”

But it isn’t only the restaurateurs who suffer when people make reservations, then don’t show up. Other diners suffer as well from this particular form of rudeness, thoughtlessness and selfishness.

If you make a reservation in a busy restaurant, that means someone else gets turned away and misses the chance to eat there. If this happens often enough, the restaurant starts overbooking to compensate for the no-shows, and then -- without fail -- there are bound to be nights when everyone does show up. You know what happens then: People wait 30 minutes or an hour -- or longer -- for their tables.

Some restaurants use no-shows as an excuse to overbook. They want customers to sit in the bar and have a couple of cocktails before dinner. That builds their profit margin -- and it may also induce some easily lubricated diners to order more food and more expensive wine than they otherwise might.

I abhor restaurants that do that and try to avoid them -- and advise friends to do likewise. But most respectable restaurateurs don’t behave that way.

Sometimes people do have genuine, last-minute emergencies. But most just forget to cancel. Or they don’t think about the impact their neglect has on the restaurant and other diners.

I know people who routinely make multiple reservations for a single night, then decide that evening what they feel like eating or where they feel like going or what will impress their companions the most; then they just let the other reservations slide, with nary a thought about calling to cancel. I used to have a friend who bragged about doing that every time he went on a date with a new woman.

“Multiple reservations are a special problem when a convention is in town,” says Piero Selvaggio, proprietor of Valentino in Santa Monica. “People make reservations in advance, and then at the end of the day -- after all their meetings -- they get together with other people at the convention and compare reservations and decide to go to one place and ignore the others.”

You can’t reserve a hotel room or buy a ticket to a play or a concert or a sports event and expect not to pay if you don’t show up.

Some doctors -- and most psychiatrists -- charge patients who schedule appointments and then neither show up nor cancel. Why should restaurants be the exception to the play-or-pay rule?

Selvaggio has often been asked to speak on the no-show problem at restaurant industry programs -- his usual title is “Guess Who’s Not Coming to Dinner” -- and like most of his colleagues, he says the worst night for no-shows is Saturday, the busiest and potentially most lucrative night of the week.

It could be even worse

In recent years, an increasing number of restaurants have started asking for telephone numbers when they take reservations. Then they call back to confirm. That helps, they say.

“No-shows would be even worse if we didn’t do that the day before,” says Alex Scrimgeour, chef-proprietor of Alex restaurant. “When we call people to reconfirm, it’s amazing how often they say, ‘Oh, we can’t make it; we were just going to call you to cancel.’ Of course, they weren’t going to do any such thing.”

I’ve spoken with a few restaurateurs who get so angry over no-shows that they’ll call a customer’s office on Monday if he didn’t show up and didn’t cancel on Saturday and say, “So, where were you?”

Invariably, these restaurateurs say, the customer insists he asked his secretary to call and cancel.

“When I was younger,” says Ken Frank, a longtime Los Angeles chef and now chef-proprietor of La Toque in Napa Valley, “I once called a doctor who didn’t show up for a confirmed reservation, and when I got his answering service and they asked if it was an emergency, I said yes. The doctor called back in four minutes -- from another restaurant.

“I said, ‘We’re holding your table. Are you coming?’ He hemmed and hawed and blamed it on his secretary.”

On another occasion, Frank says, when a party of six didn’t show up on a Saturday night, he waited until 3 o’clock Sunday morning, then called the home number the customer left when making the reservation.

“We’re still holding your table,” Frank said. “What time are you planning to come?”

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What it takes to get a table

Restaurants all over Los Angeles have toughened up their reservation policies.

Alex, Hollywood: Credit card numbers requested for parties of six or more. For parties of 12 or more, a nonrefundable deposit of at least $150 required.

Asia de Cuba, West Hollywood: Credit card numbers requested for parties of eight or more. Cancellations accepted four hours ahead.

Aubergine, Newport Beach: Credit card numbers requested on all weekend reservations, regardless of party size. Customers who don’t show up or who cancel with less than 48 hours’ notice are charged $50 per person.

Balboa, West Hollywood: Credit card numbers requested for parties of eight or more.

Bastide, West Hollywood: Credit card numbers requested for all but frequent customers. Customers who don’t show up or who cancel or decrease the size of their party with less than 24 hours’ notice are charged $100 per person.

Brentwood Restaurant & Lounge: Credit card numbers requested for parties of eight and more or for those who have been “continual no-shows.” Those who fail to show up are charged $25 per person.

Chinois on Main, Santa Monica: Credit card numbers requested for parties of 10 or more. Cancellations are accepted 48 hours ahead.

Lucques, West Hollywood: Credit card numbers requested for parties of 10 or more.

Matsuhisa, Beverly Hills: Credit card numbers requested for parties of six or more. Cancellations are accepted until noon the day of the reservation. No-shows are charged $20 per person.

Melisse, Santa Monica: Credit card numbers requested for parties of five or more. No-shows are charged 50% of the $68 dinner prix fixe.

Michael’s, Santa Monica: Credit card numbers requested for parties of 12 or more. Cancellations are accepted 48 hours ahead. No-shows are charged $50 per person.

Paladar Bistro Cubano, Hollywood: Credit card numbers requested on all weekend reservations. No-shows are charged $20 a person.

Patina, Hollywood: Credit card numbers requested for parties of five or more. Those who cancel with less than 72 hours’ notice are charged $50 per person.

Rockenwagner, Santa Monica: Credit card numbers requested for parties of eight or more.

David Shaw can be reached at david.shaw@latimes.com.