Restaurant Uses Twitter To Shame People

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Have you ever missed a dinner date or cancelled a reservation? Well, you'd better not eat at this restaurant or the company will try to shame you by tweeting your full name for not showing up.

“Invariably, the assh*les who decide to no-show, or cancel 20 minutes before their reservation (because one of their friends made a reservation somewhere else) ruin restaurants (as a whole) for the people who make a reservation and do their best to honor it,” writes the owner.” Either restaurants are forced to overbook and make the guests (that actually showed up) wait, or they do what we do, turn away guests for some prime-time slots because they’re booked, and then have empty tables.”
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So people just wont go there at all... Pissing off customers or making them feel more anxious at eating there probably isn't the best plan... :p
 
DeathPrincess said:
So people just wont go there at all... Pissing off customers or making them feel more anxious at eating there probably isn't the best plan... :p
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That's not how it works. The restaurant will be a hotspot for pretentious people now.
 
Really? Shit happens in life, and a restaurant is not any of the following:
-An emergency
-A Friend
-A relationship

It's a place of business. If you want business, you're a complete dumbass to do this to your customers. Obviously this person has yet to learn business 101 concerning customer/client relations :rolleyes: I've had reservations that I had to cancel on, things come up. I think holding tables for reservations is dumb to begin with. If customers with money are walking in wanting to spend it, they are added to the list like normal. If someone reserves, unless it's a large party they should not hold tables. If the reservation actually shows up - they should go to the top of the list. But holding an empty table? That's just stupid.



LeninGHOLA: No. Just no. There's plenty of restaurants that talk shit to you as a theme, it's nothing new, nothing exciting. Pissing off your customers (or revenue rather) is a lose-lose game, however.
 
Cyraxx said:
LeninGHOLA: No. Just no. There's plenty of restaurants that talk shit to you as a theme, it's nothing new, nothing exciting. Pissing off your customers (or revenue rather) is a lose-lose game, however.
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You don't seem to understand how pretentious people work. Watch an episode or three of season 1 Portlandia.

Obviously normal people will be less inclined to visit after this tantrum, but people who wear retro scarves in the summer will be attracted by the Twitter controversy.
 
Why not just do it the way Hotels and Airlines do ... require a CC to make the reservation and if the person is a no show then charge them a fee ... the worst that happens is that you have to switch your reservation system to the web to force people to accept the T&C ;)
 
LeninGHOLA said:
That's not how it works. The restaurant will be a hotspot for pretentious people now.
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True. Very true.

On a side note, I now have a table reserved on a weekly basis for the next six months so that I might look down my nose at you worthless peasants. :p
 
Customers are dickbags in nearly every line of work.

Also that reminds me that's why it pisses me off a little when people always ask with computer parts:
"I've had this for a week, should I return it for this?"
and then say stuff like this
"Mann! fuck newegg, they sold me an already opened graphics card!!" and are all paranoid about refurbs.
 
If I had a dime for every time I would tweet how bad or mediocre restaurant services are, I'd be retired by now. That restaurant had better never drop the ball with their food and service quality.
 
The easiest procedure for people that cancel reservations late, or just don't show up, is to put their name on a list. If they repeat the behaviour a couple times then they go on the second list that says never reserve anything for these people, ever. The people that had a conflict come up and couldn't make it, or call to cancel, will never have issues with your restaurant. The folks that make reservations and never show, repeatedly, will be told politely that they've cancelled too many times to trust a reservation. Kindly show up and wait in line with everyone else.
 
I've never been to a restaurant that takes reservations that didn't also have a pile of people without reservations seeing if they could get a table. If this is really a problem for you, you need to consider how you allocate tables and manage the place. Thousands and thousands of other places manage it, so can you.
 
I don't see what the big deal is, who gives a shit what some restaurant twitter account tweets.
 
A friend of mine owns and runs a tiny restaurant that seats maybe 12 people at most. Some douchebag made a reservation for every seat in the place and then didn't show up. She had called in extra staff and was turning customers away as the reservation time neared. She now no longer takes reservations.

People need to be shamed for their ridiculous behavior, no matter what it is.
 
bucket said:
A friend of mine owns and runs a tiny restaurant that seats maybe 12 people at most. Some douchebag made a reservation for every seat in the place and then didn't show up. She had called in extra staff and was turning customers away as the reservation time neared. She now no longer takes reservations.

People need to be shamed for their ridiculous behavior, no matter what it is.
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There are plenty of legitimate reasons for no-showing a reservation and not calling. Car accidents, heart attacks, feral space chimps...
 
yea but only people following will find out who's not making it, so just boycott their tweets.,,,

who are htey anyway
 
bucket said:
A friend of mine owns and runs a tiny restaurant that seats maybe 12 people at most. Some douchebag made a reservation for every seat in the place and then didn't show up. She had called in extra staff and was turning customers away as the reservation time neared. She now no longer takes reservations.

People need to be shamed for their ridiculous behavior, no matter what it is.
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Or they can have a policy that if you reserve for more than X people, you need to pay a nominal fee with your CC over the phone. If you don't cancel within X hours of your reservation, the fee is kept. If you show up on time, it's refunded or credited to your bill.
 
LeninGHOLA said:
feral space chimps...
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You know, I can't tell you how many times they have made me miss my reservations ... you would think the SPACE RANGERS (imagine a booming cartoon voice) could control them better :cool:
 
LeninGHOLA said:
There are plenty of legitimate reasons for no-showing a reservation and not calling. Car accidents, heart attacks, feral space chimps...
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Then you can call and apologize afterwards like a considerate human being. People need to understand that businesses are other peoples' jobs. If you screw them, they can't earn a living. Restaurants are one of the hardest businesses to be in (closings-wise).
 
Mr34727 said:
Then you can call and apologize afterwards like a considerate human being. People need to understand that businesses are other peoples' jobs. If you screw them, they can't earn a living. Restaurants are one of the hardest businesses to be in (closings-wise).
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I don't disagree. Though if you have a heart attack and can't make it to your reservation, the last thing you are thinking about is if the host/hostess of said restaurant is having a bad night or not.
 
Mr34727 said:
Then you can call and apologize afterwards like a considerate human being. People need to understand that businesses are other peoples' jobs. If you screw them, they can't earn a living. Restaurants are one of the hardest businesses to be in (closings-wise).
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Now that you mention it, you're right. This restaurant needs to get swamped with random reservations from people who provide fake, but realistic sounding names plucked from their local phone directory so they can post ranting stupidity on Twitter until they go under for being stupid. *high fives* Good idea!
 
LeninGHOLA said:
That's not how it works. The restaurant will be a hotspot for pretentious people now.
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It's in Beverly Hills, it's already halfway there. A quick look at the menu, and they serve scallops which are cooked over hot river stones? Yeah it's already one of those places
 
Making any kind of appointment with someone, and then being late or not showing up for that obligation is not "life getting in the way", its simply selfish douchebaggery with a disregard for the value of other people's time.

Personally, I believe that simply charging a non-refundable reservation fee per-table that goes towards the price of your meal as long as you show up on time is a more professional approach.

The restaurant then protects themselves from flaky douchebags and it doesn't cost your average Joe that takes his or her responsibilities seriously since its absorbed in to the meal price and costs nothing.
 
Ididar said:
The easiest procedure for people that cancel reservations late, or just don't show up, is to put their name on a list. If they repeat the behaviour a couple times then they go on the second list that says never reserve anything for these people, ever. The people that had a conflict come up and couldn't make it, or call to cancel, will never have issues with your restaurant. The folks that make reservations and never show, repeatedly, will be told politely that they've cancelled too many times to trust a reservation. Kindly show up and wait in line with everyone else.
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^^^ This. In fact, I know at least on establishment in my area that does this (Found out when I was dating one of the hostess)
 
competitor restaurant owner:

Finds name of someone who just died. Makes reservation. Waits for tweet after not showing up. Revels in bad pr.
 
Ocean said:
competitor restaurant owner:

Finds name of someone who just died. Makes reservation. Waits for tweet after not showing up. Revels in bad pr.
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I was thinking about this. That would make them feel bad.
 
Not that I would be one to cancel reservations out of the blue without a good reason but if someone tweeted my name I wouldn't give 2 shits as I don't use twitter nor do I care if someone sees my name on there. As far as I am concerned, twits tweet.
 
Ducman69 said:
Personally, I believe that simply charging a non-refundable reservation fee per-table that goes towards the price of your meal as long as you show up on time is a more professional approach.
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I went to Disney World for the first time early last year, and was told I should get reservations at some restaurants due to you not getting a seat otherwise... apparently they changed their policy and started charging people a fee that is non refundable if you cancel 24 hours out (or somewhere in that range) and oh the fucking outcries on the message board I was reading at the time "But what if my little Johnny gets sick" yeah well what about me having to grab a hot dog from a cart because you're taking up a spot in a restaurant I'm not going to go to. Not to mention there were also the douche bags who'd overlap many reservations and just pick which one is convenient and go to that one.

All in all, because school was in session (I have none, just me and the wife) there were only 1 place where reservations made sense, everywhere else I had reservations (literally made them the day of) it was like "yeah sure walk on in we got plenty of tables)
 
I think they should just make the reservation time very sharp. If you're 1 minute late they give your table away. You should be showing up earlier for a reservation anyway so you can be there when people start to arrive.

I can truly see the restaurant's point of view on this issue though. People just change their mind or make other plans last minute and don't even bother to cancel as it does not harm them if they don't. Now it will.

Another thing they could also do is make you pay a deposit, say 10 bucks per person. That goes against your tab when you go, if you don't go, then too bad, you're out of that money.
 
LOL wtf? If the people are not there in five minutes you give the table away to someone in the line standing outside that would be glad to have it.

Wait, your restaurant doesn't have a line of people outside? Clearly, there is your problem.
 
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