PrimeTime Tables

[Felonius]

Firstly, I agree with pretty much everything Fat Guy has posted on this topic.

Secondly, the unfortunate reality of New York in 2007 is that it is extremely difficult to secure a prime time reservation at a top restaurant in NYC. Many of us don't have the luxury of time to spend weeks by the phone on speed-dial trying to get a reservationist, nor due to work schedules do we have the luxury of flexibility in booking reservations weeks or months in advance. My personal solution to this problem has been to cultivate relationships with my favorite places, so that I can have access to the blocks of tables permanently set aside for "VIPs". Unless you are a celebrity, this means months or even years of regular patronage - plus tipping extremely well, buying premium bottles of wine, and making sure the front of the house gets an extra tip or gift now and then. Is this "right" or democratic? Not at all. Is it ridiculous? Of course. But that is the reality of high end dining in this city. So in the end, the fees charged by this "prime time" service are actually pretty cheap compared to the cost of getting access to the VIP reservations system that exists (albeit very quietly) at nearly every high end establishment in NYC.

I have no desire to use this service and show up under an assumed name. You're paying a premium for the table but you're not going to get any special perks in terms of food or service. I'd rather pay my dues and get premium tables and service the old fashioned way. However, I have no problem with the concept. If it works for you geat, if not, set your phone's speed dial to the numbers for Babbo, Daniel, etc. and fight it out for those precious few prime time tables on the open reservations system.

To me the most interesting part of all this will be to see if the restaurants eventually respond with tiered pricing. Theoretically, they are leaving cash on the table. These restaurants could charge a premium for prime time reservations themselves. The amount of backlash this would generate with the public will probably keep this from ever happening, but who knows?

Edited March 2, 2007 by Felonius (log)

[oakapple]

Per Eater, many of the city's major restauranteurs (Meyer, McNally) are starting to figure out how to distinguish PTT reservations from "real" ones. PTT is either not allowed to reserve, or the reservation isn't honored.

I always had a sense that many restaurants would not be happy with this, and would do whatever they could to put a stop to it. It may be that PTT is filling a real need. But the restaurants probably figure that if there's money to be made, they ought to be making it, not a third party.

[phaelon56]

To me the most interesting part of all this will be to see if the restaurants eventually respond with tiered pricing.  Theoretically, they are leaving cash on the table.  These restaurants could charge a premium for prime time reservations themselves.  The amount of backlash this would generate with the public will probably keep this from ever happening, but who knows?

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I can see it happening in a few hot markets at certain restaurants. I think they'd have to "sell" the available tables based on desirability of the table itself, how close to the dining date the reservation is being made and how many open tables are still left and available.

Airlines have played the seat price game for years as have many hotels for room pricing and even Amtrak does it now. The fewer seats the number of seats remaining on a given train when you buy... the higher the price is.

[oakapple]

I can see it happening in a  few hot markets at certain restaurants.  I think they'd have to "sell" the available tables based on desirability of the table itself, how close to the dining date the reservation is being made and how many open tables are still left and available.

Airlines have played the seat price game for years as have many hotels for room pricing and even Amtrak does it now.  The fewer seats the number of seats remaining on a given train when you buy...  the higher the price is.

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I think airlines get away with it because they have a captive audience. I mean, if you want to get from NY to California without it taking a week, you have to take an airline, and there are only a handful of them. But there are 20,000 restaurants in New York City. There are only a few of them that are so hotly desired that they could afford to make life less convenient for the diner, and manage to get away with it.

[Nathan]

specifically, yield pricing is calibrated to take advantage of business expense accounts...it only makes sense for restaurants if they can tap into the same market (and this is the exact niche PTT hits -- it primarily offers four-tops and six-tops).

yield pricing for transportation carriers works like this: most people who seek a last minute flight (or train ticket on a heavily traveled line -- i.e. only the Northeastern corridor) are business travelers who couldn't plan it in advance. business travelers, since they're not paying out of pocket, are relatively price-insensitive....ergo, yield pricing...which simply seeks to extract the maximum possible price that each specific individual is willing to pay (barely above cost or often below cost for leisure travelers, high multiples of cost for business travelers).

restaurants won't get much out of yield pricing two-tops..business favorite restaurants might be able to get away with it for four and six tops on prime nights.

[BryanZ]

How do people feel about restaurants not honoring reservations made via PTT, as rumored on Eater? To me that seems incredibly inhospitable and alienating. Restauraterus need to take this up with PTT, not the clients, especially if they make no explicit claims against using the service.

[Sneakeater]

Lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas.

[Sneakeater]

I know most people here disagree with me, but I think that if you make a reservation through a service that requires you to check in under an assumed name, you've got to be on notice that something might not be on the up-and-up between you and the restaurant.

Edited March 29, 2007 by Sneakeater (log)

[rich]

Lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas.

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Thank God there are no sleepy elephants around.

[banquo]

How do people feel about restaurants not honoring reservations made via PTT, as rumored on Eater?  To me that seems incredibly inhospitable and alienating.  Restauraterus need to take this up with PTT, not the clients, especially if they make no explicit claims against using the service.

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It wouldn't seem rational for restaurants to refuse a table, since then they would lose that cover for the particular time. Of course, it might be possible to fill the table with people waiting in the wings, but if that is the typical practice, then there seems to be little justification for the other, albeit uncommon, practice of penalizing diners who don't show up (I'm referring to restaurants who take credit card numbers and charge a certain amount if the reservation is not honored).

Just to be clear, I'm not saying that restaurants don't have the authority to refuse PTT reservations, I'm saying it would not be to their advantage.

[slkinsey]

It wouldn't seem rational for restaurants to refuse a table, since then they would lose that cover for the particular time.

Sure it seems rational, if their strategy is to take a short-term small loss in business in exchange for putting Prime Time Tables out of business or at the very least scaring PTT away from scalping tables at their restaurant.

[docsconz]

How do people feel about restaurants not honoring reservations made via PTT, as rumored on Eater?  To me that seems incredibly inhospitable and alienating.  Restauraterus need to take this up with PTT, not the clients, especially if they make no explicit claims against using the service.

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It wouldn't seem rational for restaurants to refuse a table, since then they would lose that cover for the particular time. Of course, it might be possible to fill the table with people waiting in the wings, but if that is the typical practice, then there seems to be little justification for the other, albeit uncommon, practice of penalizing diners who don't show up (I'm referring to restaurants who take credit card numbers and charge a certain amount if the reservation is not honored).

Just to be clear, I'm not saying that restaurants don't have the authority to refuse PTT reservations, I'm saying it would not be to their advantage.

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They don't lose that cover if they don't accept that reservation in the first place. If it is a busy restaurant such that PTT would even be a consideration for someone who wants a reservation, they would be able to afford to turn away reservations if they knew it was from PTT so no lost revenue.

[docsconz]

How do people feel about restaurants not honoring reservations made via PTT, as rumored on Eater?  To me that seems incredibly inhospitable and alienating.  Restauraterus need to take this up with PTT, not the clients, especially if they make no explicit claims against using the service.

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I don' think it is alienating at all. The clients of PTT could still make their reservations personally if so inclined and if not and it is a busy restaurant, others will. Those others won't be alienated by the fact that all the reservations had been taken by PTT and unavailable to them.

[oakapple]

It wouldn't seem rational for restaurants to refuse a table, since then they would lose that cover for the particular time.

I suspect the only restaurants doing this are those that can easily fill the table. The example given was Morandi, which clearly fits the bill.

In that case, the "cost" to the restaurant is an alienated customer. True, the customer probably knew (or strongly suspected) that there was something shady about PTT. Still, if a restaurant refuses to seat me, I'm probably not going back there again anytime soon. Of course, I probably wouldn't use PTT again either, which is the restaurant's objective. That's why this would be a rational strategy for the restaurant, assuming that they want PTT out of business.

Of course, it might be possible to fill the table with people waiting in the wings, but if that is the typical practice, then there seems to be little justification for the other, albeit uncommon, practice of penalizing diners who don't show up (I'm referring to restaurants who take credit card numbers and charge a certain amount if the reservation is not honored).

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Frank Bruni had a blog post about this a few weeks ago. Many of the restaurants that take credit card numbers don't actually put through the cancellation charge if the customer fails to show up. The reason is that, if you never signed an authorization, the credit card company won't honor the charge if the customer complains. But still, someone who's given a CC number is more likely to honor the reservation, so the restaurant still benefits.

Restaurants tend to be serious about CC numbers when there's a high likelihood that the table couldn't be filled. Frank Bruni gave the example of a reservation for 8 at Cafe Boulud. You don't get many 8-person walk-ins, and it's not practical to re-arrange the dining room in the middle of dinner service.

[tommy]

it's a stroke of brilliance to "leak" this info even if they haven't quite cracked the code.

[banquo]

It wouldn't seem rational for restaurants to refuse a table, since then they would lose that cover for the particular time.

Sure it seems rational, if their strategy is to take a short-term small loss in business in exchange for putting Prime Time Tables out of business or at the very least scaring PTT away from scalping tables at their restaurant.

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Point well taken, but what are the conditions under which such a strategy (of putting PTT out of business) would succeed? I don't think restaurants working singly could bring it about; it would seem to require some industry wide concerted effort. Moreover, the knowledge that people with PTT reservations are being turned away would have to become widespread. Admittedly, perhaps that's not a difficult condition to meet given the prevalence of online posting.

One problem that Docsconz's post suggests is this: how are restaurants supposed to know who arrives with a PTT reservation? The level of invasion of privacy needed to discover this (e.g., asking for id)would seem prohibitive. Additionally, don't some people, for example, food critics, make reservations under a pseudonym? How would you screen for those people?

[BryanZ]

How do people feel about restaurants not honoring reservations made via PTT, as rumored on Eater?  To me that seems incredibly inhospitable and alienating.  Restauraterus need to take this up with PTT, not the clients, especially if they make no explicit claims against using the service.

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I don' think it is alienating at all. The clients of PTT could still make their reservations personally if so inclined and if not and it is a busy restaurant, others will. Those others won't be alienated by the fact that all the reservations had been taken by PTT and unavailable to them.

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But doc, don't you think it would be foolish to deny a customer who has made a reservation in any form. As oakapple noted, a diner who is turned away after taking the time (and, in this case, monetary) investment is not likely to return to the restaurant and will likely tell his/her friends about it. Even if PTT is to blame, the prospective diner will blame the restaurant or, at the least, think the restaurant unhospitable. Again, there is no law or rule against a service like PTT.

I know if I was coming in from out of town or for a special night, paid to get the table to PTT or otherwise, spent the time to come down there, then be denied, I would be PISSED.

The restaurant is kind of in a shitty place, yeah, but to deny diners with reservations, even if there are walk-ins waiting to take their place just seems foolish. Restaurants are often bullied into seating customers who claim of having reservations when in fact they don't. I can't see a restaurant turning away customers in the fashion outlined at Eater.

Edited March 30, 2007 by BryanZ (log)

[docsconz]

I'm sorry if my post caused confusion. My statement was meant to highlight that apparently at least some restaurants have figured out when PTT is calling to make reservations in the first place. If those reservations are denied at the time they are being made, PTT won't have reservations to sell and nobody needs to get turned away at the door.

[BryanZ]

Oh yeah, that's fine. Then PTT is screwed.