Unacceptable behavior?

[Basildog]

RESTAURANTEURS: i know it's a tough business, but don't be penny wise and dollar foolish!  You may make $10 less on that table today by seating us there, but how much will you make when we return again and again (vs. how much you won't make when we never return). 

With respect, its not losing $10, unless thats what a 2 people spend in that place.

[tommy]

thereuare, which place was it? that Triple A place or something like it?

[elyse]

I think the point is that thereuare said that several four tops opening up. They were repeat customers, and should have been treated as such.

[glenn]

Elyse, a couple of points. Thereuare did not indicate that several 4-tops were opening up. He stated there was only 1, which was empty. Picky glenn.

As far as being regulars, this part was not really clarified. Did the hostess realize he was a regular? Which brings to question, how does a restaurant know if someone's a regular? Other than computerized reservation systems like Opentable, I would imagine (and I'm guessing) that most restaurants rely on memory. Perhaps this is a subject for another thread. I used to go to a local restaurant frequently, but unless one of the regular waiters or regular manager was there, they'd never know I was a regular, not to mention a magnanimously generous tipper. And with staff turnover being what it is in restaurants, it makes it more difficult to be remembered.

[elyse]

Shortly after we were seated (after 20 minute wait) there we plenty of 4 tops turning over, so it's not as if they had just recently filled all the other 4 tops and, if they gave us the last 4 top, the next party of 4 would have to wait an hour.

My point of view is that, in this situation, you can keep a customer waiting 5 minutes or so if you expect a 2 top to open up, but 15-20 minutes is too long to make a customer wait while they stare at an empty table and the restaurant hopes that a larger party comes thru the door.

Telling me to visit the restaurant on a Monday misses the point entirely (i think)... it's not the wait that i was upset about, it's being told to wait while there is an empty table there waiting for a customer that they hope walks thru the door (again, not waiting for a reservation to show up, just an unspecified party to walk thru the door).

If you treat me like you don't want my business on a Friday nite, don't expect me to return on a Monday when you need my business.

Ok?

[glenn]

Ok. I was only looking at his original post.

[thereuare]

I wanted to follow-up on this as i wrote the owner of the restaurant and received a personalized reply apologizing for the incident and an offer to try the restaurant again 'on the house'. I will indeed give them another shot as the owner seemed truly disturbed by my conversation with the hostess (ie- treating me like a 'billfold', a simile suggested in another post in this thread) and is going to address the situation with the staff.

[elyse]

Excellent. Thanks for the update.

[anil]

Reminds me of Amos Tyersky and Dan Kahneman's classic - Judgement under uncertainity: heuristics and biases ? Actually a lot of probabilistic judgements are made under simplistic notions of outcomes [sorry to inject academe ] The four person table's occupancy patterns are being evaluated for positive outcome in a probabilistic environment

Actually their whole body of work is a fun read - recommend it to all