Lyons Den

[hd333]

Originally Posted by baygo

How about this scenario; A restaurant gets a call on Wednesday for a table at 7 o'clock Saturday night. The restaurant pencils in the reservation. A customer without a reservation shows up as a walk-in at 6:15 on Saturday night. The only empty table in the house is the one being held for the people who reserved it at 7 PM. What would you suggest a restaurant and do?

Very easy.

Host/Hostess is honest with the customer.

Tell them the open table has a party coming in at 7:00 and if they would like the table they need to be out by 7 and that you will do everything in your power to expedite their food coming out. Let the customer decide if they simply want to eat or if they wanted to be there for a while.

Don't say you can have the table but you have to eat fast, give them some background.


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[FlyingScot]

Originally Posted by hd333

Very easy.

Host/Hostess is honest with the customer.

Tell them the open table has a party coming in at 7:00 and if they would like the table they need to be out by 7 and that you will do everything in your power to expedite their food coming out. Let the customer decide if they simply want to eat or if they wanted to be there for a while.

Don't say you can have the table but you have to eat fast, give them some background.


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I agree it's easy if the host is honest and smiles. But I think 45 mins is too tight, so I'd tell the 6pm arrivals that I'm sorry but that table is reserved, and I'd give them a business card with a phone number so that next time they can call.

This situation is very different than the complaints above

[Biggd]

I'm sure we all have restaurant horror stories. My wife and I always loved Frattello's but we walked in there one night and was told there was and 1 1/2 hour wait. No problem, we put our name in and went for a nice walk down by the lake as it was a nice night. 1 1/2 hours later they sat us, the waiter came over and told us that the kitchen was extremely backed up and we probably wouldn't see our meal for over an hour. If we had been told that in the first place we never would have waited. Now it's 830 pm and we are not going to see our meal until 930 pm at the earliest? Not acceptable behavior!
We left and went to Patrick's and have never been back. That was 2 years ago. They may not need my business but I also don't need their food.

[Doobs41378]

Originally Posted by PeterG

I agree it's easy if the host is honest and smiles. But I think 45 mins is too tight, so I'd tell the 6pm arrivals that I'm sorry but that table is reserved, and I'd give them a business card with a phone number so that next time they can call.

This situation is very different than the complaints above

But if others did not think 45 minutes was too tight ( if the kitchen worked with them ) then why not let the customer decide? I am sure the owner and wait staff would appreciate the business if the customer was ok with it.