Valentine’s Day no-shows ‘crippling’ independent restaurants

by XPRESS, 20 February 2018

Damian Wawrzyniak, owner of House of Feasts, Peterborough, has launched a campaign to combat no-shows after revealing they cost his business about £3,000 in just one weekend.

His #StopNoShow campaign has received the support of hundreds of peers including award winning American restaurateur Grant Achatz of Alinea, Chicago.

Wawrzyniak said: “As chefs, we spend much of our lives in the kitchen, working long days, late nights, weekends and special occasions. It’s incredibly frustrating – I understand that plans change at the last minute but it shouldn’t be too much to ask that those not able to make it let the restaurant know so they can re-book that table.”

At Menu Gordon Jones in Bath, a table of four failed to turn up on Valentine’s Day, despite being contacted multiple times, meaning it lost out on at least £400.

Jones, who had 47 people on a waiting list, said: “It’s not necessarily about the money for me, it’s more for me the embarrassment, because people come and see an empty table after booking six months in advance.”

Matthew Brend, director of Brend hotels which operates 11 venues in Devon and Cornwall, said his company started taking deposits for every booking following a disappointing New Year’s Eve to combat no-shows. He found that less bookings were taken for Valentine’s Day, but all those who had reserved a table arrived.

“I’d encourage people to take deposits wherever they can, especially at special occasions such as Valentines Day.” He said. “But I can sympathise with businesses that don’t because diners are reluctant to hand over money when it’s not a special occasion. Awareness needs to be raised somehow to show it is a very serious issue and people need to be more mindful when making these bookings.”

Bar 44, a tapas bar in Cardiff, had 16 no-show tables on Valentine’s Day, estimated to have cost the business £1,300. At its more formal sister site a new booking system, which requires diners to enter their debit card details, has combated the problem and director and co-founder Tom Morgan is now considering rolling this out at Bar 44.

Joe Buckley, owner of the Perfect Country Pub Company, explained the difficulties of introducing such a system. He said: “At a Michelin starred restaurant you’d expect to pay a deposit, but we aren’t in that position as a pub. Fortunately, we are in a lucky position where we can sell tables if people let us know in advance. We will generally call round and confirm bookings, but if you can’t get hold of them then what do you do? Do you cancel and resell the table and risk them turning up?”

His three pubs in Northamptonshire lost 52 covers across three pubs on Valentine’s Day due to no-shows.

Steps are being made to prevent customers from continuing this behaviour. Reservation system OpenTable’s policy is, if a diner doesn’t show up for a reservation four times in 12 months, they will be prohibited from making future reservations.

Article credit: The Caterer