Plans to ban no-shows
by Leon Gettler
The no-shows are the bane for every restaurant owner.
These are the folks who book a table at a restaurant and then, without warning, fail to turn up. It’s costing restaurants thousands of dollars.’
Let’s say for example the owner of a 50 seat restaurant takes down a booking for four and they don’t show up. That’s 8 per cent of his takings for the night.
Some of the no shows are in the habit of booking three restaurants for one night, and then they make a choice, leaving the other two in the lurch.
It’s become such a problem that Australia’s largest online restaurant booking network has come up with a proposal: no shows have to be given an ultimatum: either show up for your booking or face being banned.
In order for it to work, it would have to be enforced by restaurants.
Dimmi chief executive officer and founder , Stevan Premutico, says it’s the only way to solve the problem.
He cited the case of Valentines Days as an example.
Some restaurants didn’t make any money at all that day because booking simply failed to turn up.
“There were hundreds of restaurants on Valentine’s Day that could have filled their space 4 or 5 times over,” Premutico told News Corporation.
“But say at the last minute, 6 people are a no show, that means the chances refilling at such short notice is almost zero chance. So that $1,000 that would have been cleared, has now gone.
“This means there’s a high chance that an owner or chef will go home without making a dollar., and that’s why no shows are such a sore point for restaurant owners and the industry.
“Banning the repeat offenders who fail to honour reservations will help to eradicate the issue.”
1st March 2016
