HANDS UP, when the Herald is reviewing restaurants it rarely books and even if it does book it is under an assumed name.
But we do always turn up. Always. Sometimes when least welcome. To learn then that some people are apparently booking multiple restaurants for dinner and then just choosing one at the last minute - not even bothering to cancel the others - is surprising. Booking multiple restaurants at the same time is wrong. Seriously. Have we really become that selfish? No thought to the loss of income, the chaos or even the simple dashing of hope and expectations that will inevitably follow no shows in a precariously fragile industry? That others may want that table? Or even that many dishes are prepped in advance and have to be thrown away. Mark Greenaway in Edinburgh is talking of 450 cancelled bookings or no shows in a single month. That’s not a problem - that’s an epidemic. It’s now so widespread that Open Table, London’s restaurant booking app has issued a four-no-shows-and-you’re-banned rule.
Frankly? That’s too soft. If you no-show more than once there’s surely something wrong with you. And if this is a problem for the popular restaurants who may have empty tables in a dining room that would otherwise be full, think what it’s like for the restaurants who operate on the margins. Their owners may be looking at a fat bookings diary and thinking they have a chance of surviving. Only to be bitten by the reality that many of these same bookings are from ghost diners. And it’s not just chefs, waiting staff and even the taxman who lose out when the restaurant goes under. Yes, it does seems that amid the current food mania no sooner does one restaurant close than another hopeful instantly rises from the ashes. Of course landlords make the sure money.
But the more precarious and dangerous the restaurant business becomes the less daring new starts can be. That means fewer risks taken, a fear of flair and a slide into wall to wall blandness, already a growing problem in Glasgow where entry costs are high. So ultimately we all lose from a lack of choice. Inevitably deposits or credit card details are going to be demanded with bookings. Many of the very top restaurants already do it.
It will unfortunately penalise people of lower incomes, and those who don’t or can’t have credit cards. In the long run the growth in use of booking apps will deal with the issue through instant bans. Until then those selfish people who think there are no consequences in no-showing should be probably be made aware they affect everybody.
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