Has someone stolen a restaurant reservation from you?

May 29, 2006 3:48 PM

Restaurant reservation poaching? Witnesses? Perpetrators?

I was reading restaurant critic Michael Bauer's blog where he shares a jaw-dropping story about very bad manners in a restaurant.

Good lord! Does this happen a lot? Has this happened to you? Have you done it?

posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord to Food & Drink (29 answers total)

It has. We reserved a table for 11 at an Indian restaurant and when another large party entered and was asked if they were the large party for whom the reservation was made, they said "Yes!"

I was so pissed! I wanted to go over and yell at the douches, but wife/friends convinced me otherwise. Still, have never been back to that place again.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 3:52 PM on May 29, 2006

How much ya wanna bet that the family that 'poached' the reservation actually WERE friends of the manager?
posted by SpecialK at 3:57 PM on May 29, 2006

I've done it, accidentally. Walked into a Bob Evans or someplace in college and gave the easiest last name to spell in our group. The hostess said, "Oh, great, I just called you," so we took the table. Probably shouldn't have, of course, and wouldn't now, but I hide behind the "young and stupid" defense.

Karma, of course, has a way of settling the score, and someone poached our table a few years later. Like robocop, I have never been back there because the maitre d' didn't stop the hostess from seating them (we watched the couple walk back to "our" table") and because they didn't hustle to get us a replacement table quickly.
posted by Sweetie Darling at 4:00 PM on May 29, 2006

I was a host at a restaurant for a while, and I never had this happen that I know of. Then again, I ran a pretty tight ship, and was the only host to actually enforce the 'we don't seat incomplete parties on weekends' policy, to the frustration of many customers.

However, in terms of this specific story, one it happened, the manager's initial reaction doesn't surprise me much. Restaurant people, especially managers, want to avoid offending customers at all costs, and for the people sitting and eating, the money was already in the bank. For the irate people waiting, well, if it's a full house, some people are not going to like how long they have to wait; that's just how it is.

If it were me in the author's situation, I may have just poured the water over the manager's head, and/or gone ahead and disrupted the meal of the poachers, and then left the scene. Getting a restaurant staff riled up and then eating food that they serve you is never a good idea. On the other hand, they seemed to get along with their waitress fine, so there might not have been an issue in that regard.

All that said, if the manager was smart, he would have just given over the next table and left them the hell alone. But restaurant managers are not smart.
posted by bingo at 4:01 PM on May 29, 2006

Peeking at the guest list and giving that name is very common at clubs, although experienced doormen shield the list from prying eyes. Some people have highly evolved methods for seeing the list, grabbing a name, then returning with another person claiming to be the guest.

But at a restaurant, when you know the party is going to see you sitting there, I would think the possibility for unpleasantness would deter everyone but a totaly arrogant jerk.
posted by StickyCarpet at 4:08 PM on May 29, 2006

Only inadvertently. It happens with large office lunches - somebody's going away, somebody organises lunch, nobody is sure which name the booking is in, somebody suggests a name of a possible organiser that turns out to be reasonably common, and once in while we end up with our party of 12 luxuriating at a table for 18 booked for a completely different Bassingthwaite.

Seems it could be avoided pretty simply - record reservations by phone number as well as surname. This would stop the accidental double-ups like us, and while crooks like those in the article might be able to read a surname upside-down pretty easily, not many could do the same with a surname and a phone number.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 4:11 PM on May 29, 2006

Only inadvertently. It happens with large office lunches - somebody's going away, somebody organises lunch, nobody is sure which name the booking is in, somebody suggests a name of a possible organiser that turns out to be reasonably common, and once in while we end up with our party of 12 luxuriating at a table for 18 booked for a completely different Bassingthwaite.

Make these sorts of reservations under the name of your firm or shop. Although that doesn't really help if you work for a law firm or other business that would just be a bunch of names.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 4:23 PM on May 29, 2006

Hmmm, I think from now on, I'm going to make reservations under my (not common) last name instead of my (common) first name.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 4:29 PM on May 29, 2006 [1 favorite]

This stuff saddens the heck out of me. How can I possibly teach my kid that being honest gets you ahead in the world when craptoads like this get away with cheating without consequences?

That being said, I've seen this happen once and the manager just dealt with it without problem...he was lucky enough to have a table open up at the right time, though he had to do the table arrangement in a rush to fit the group. The cheaters didn't suffer for their rudeness, but neither did the cheated.
posted by Kickstart70 at 4:29 PM on May 29, 2006

I just thought of a solution!

When making the reservation, give the name 'Bich', pronounced 'Beesh', and spell it for the staff person who took your call.

When the cheaters come along and try to steal the reservation for "Bitch", they are busted ;-)
posted by Kickstart70 at 4:33 PM on May 29, 2006

We used to make restaurant reservations under strange names all the time; "Brushfire", for example. At the time it was all about getting the hostess to call out a strange word ["Ointment, party of two?"].

Maybe this is a reason to resurrect the practice.
posted by chazlarson at 4:39 PM on May 29, 2006 [1 favorite]

This is why I like when they give out the little buzzer things. It's gimmicky but pretty foolproof.
posted by danb at 5:36 PM on May 29, 2006

Several decades ago, my dad worked in Chicago. His boss's last name was Johnson. Whenever the two of them went out for a meal, they never worried about reservations. Mr. Boss Guy just went up to the counter and asked if they had a reservation for Johnson. It never failed.
posted by diddlegnome at 5:44 PM on May 29, 2006

Am I the only one willing to call bs on the original story linked to?
posted by Xalf at 5:47 PM on May 29, 2006

danb - True, but the more important episodes of this kind of cheating happening is at restaurants where reservations need to be made far in advance. Then you miss out on a meal that you waited weeks for.

The local white tablecloth place started giving out confirmation codes. You couldn't get them to take you unless you had the code. People quickly learned, even though I think there are a bunch who get pissed off by their own stupidity. This is a college town, so there was always the guy who wanted to impress a girl with a meal at said restaurant on the spur of the moment, even though there's a week wait for tables.
posted by SpecialK at 5:47 PM on May 29, 2006

When I was young and stupid, I once walked in with a buddy and declared that I was the owner of the "Wallner" reservation that I had skimmed from the book. I chose that name because it was apparent from the book that the party had either missed their reservation or were late arriving.

A few minutes later, I was introduced to the real Wallner party, which had already arrived -- they weren't late, the hostess hadn't crossed them off the list!

We immediately hit it off. "Wow, what are odds? Where are you guys from? Are we related?" The guy was so happy to meet another Wallner, I thought he would buy us drinks. The greatest acting performance of my career and he never doubted it for a second.

It never occurred to me that the restaurant manager might've denied someone a table because of what I did. Having worked and managed many, many restaurants, I think I know most of the tricks in the table game. There's always a table opening up, always a relationship that can be massaged with free drinks and desserts. Although I never did it again and I'm not recommending it, "stealing a reservation" shouldn't be a disaster for anyone.
posted by frogan at 5:57 PM on May 29, 2006 [1 favorite]

Kind of reminds me of this...


Maitre D': You're Abe Froman?
Ferris: That's right, I'm Abe Froman.
Maitre D': The Sausage King of Chicago?
Ferris: [caught off-guard] ... Uh yeah, that's me.
posted by alightfoot at 6:06 PM on May 29, 2006 [1 favorite]

Happened to a large group I was with. I think we were ten. Hostess to group who stole our table in crowded brewpub: "Are you the Reardon party?" Them: "Yeah, that is us." When we got there we were mighty disappointed. I suggested they buy us a round of drinks while they got us another table, which they did.
posted by fixedgear at 6:09 PM on May 29, 2006

I've eaten in thousands of restaurants, a few with crappy or rude service, but this kind of thing - what the manager pulled on the party - never happened to me.

I've seen it happen to other parties, though. What usually happens is that the entitled/wronged party does or says something rude or obnoxious, often without being fully aware of how they're being received. It may be how they're dressed or their accents. The manager then decides that as far as this restaurant goes, tonight, they're fucked, and hopefully they'll choose to dine elsewhere.

The really unbelievable part is that anyone could behave this way - threaten a manager? - and then be so credulous as to proceed to eat what they're served. Stewed cockroach? Filet of stool? Whisky urine on the rocks? Anybody? Bueller?

So I, too, must call bullshit.
posted by ikkyu2 at 11:50 PM on May 29, 2006

The really unbelievable part is that anyone could behave this way - threaten a manager? - and then be so credulous as to proceed to eat what they're served. Stewed cockroach? Filet of stool? Whisky urine on the rocks? Anybody? Bueller?

Well, if the customers managed to taste it, the waitstaff would be out more than just lost tips—we're talking fines and jail time. Not smart.
posted by oaf at 11:52 PM on May 29, 2006

What oaf said on that--I don't know anyone who'd dare tamper with the food in any of the places I've worked foodservice.

Dickhead managers are usually dickheads to the staff, not the customers--I'd call BS on the story in the blog, too.

We don't take reservations where I work--a "reservation" puts you next on the seating list at the "reserved" time, and we explain this clearly to callers along with the fact that we don't hold tables (we do, to a point--if we're expecting 18 people, we'll hold some space for them, but a party of six isn't going to have an assigned table--they'll have the next one available when they come in).

A couple weeks ago (actually--it was also on Mother's Day, which is by far our busiest day of the year), another server had one big party table, and I had the one right next to it. Mine was cleared slightly before the other (and was slightly bigger), so they set it up with a smaller table as an extension, and sat a party of nine or ten (including some small children) there. Right behind them, the hosts came up to seat another party of eight (who'd been waiting about 15 minutes longer) at the other table. Unfortunately, the party at my table had decided that they needed both the tables and simply taken the second over. As I walked up, I asked if there was a problem, and a woman at my table started going off on me, that they had expected to have two tables, and how could we expect them to have enough room to eat at one table? So, I've never had my reservation "poached" as a patron, but I've waited on a table who'd done it to someone else--fortunately, in an environment that didn't run on a tight reservation schedule.

Management, of course, gave in without an argument, leaving the other table to wait another 20 minutes, and hurting both the other server and me in terms of sales volume and income potential, as well as the third server who ended up with the other party, who were very angry by the time they sat down and had part of their bill discounted from the outset.

I think if it were me managing, I'd have insisted that the table who refused to sit at just their one table wait for a bigger space to open up and given the other table to the party who'd waited longer. People with entitled, self-important attitudes ruin the dining experiences of other diners and make restaurant personnel miserable trying to keep taking care of these people while they make it clear that they think they're above those who are waiting on them. In the story in that blog, if any of it's true, that includes the reservation stealers and the manager at least, and the displaced party if they really would have caused that kind of a scene, which would undoubtedly have caused havoc for they entire staff, of whom the manager would have probably been one of the less-inconvenienced members.
posted by Cricket at 12:27 AM on May 30, 2006

I don't believe the story either, and I find it hard to believe that Bauer takes it seriously. It has all the over-the-top hallmarks of first-person fakery.

How can I possibly teach my kid that being honest gets you ahead in the world when craptoads like this get away with cheating without consequences?

You shouldn't lie to your kids. Seriously, that's a very bad way to try to get kids to be honest; when they discover it's not true, they're likely to 1) give up on honesty and 2) think you're a liar and/or fool. Tell them to be honest because it's the right thing to do, period.
posted by languagehat at 5:52 AM on May 30, 2006

A more likely scenario is that the guy did get his reservation poached, the manager was a jerk, but they just went someplace else for dinner. And then wrote in with what they wished they'd done.

Every instance I've witnessed of really egregious rudeness by restaurants has been personal, either of the "preference to my friends above all other customers" type or the "I don't like your accent/skin color/stereotype" variety.
posted by desuetude at 6:45 AM on May 30, 2006

Kickstart70: Your solution won't work, since the host will write down the phonetic spelling of the name you give them. They don't care how it's spelled; they care how to pronounce it so that you will respond to it. (Note: some hosts are not smart enough to do this, but it's common.)

And indeed, you shouldn't be teaching your kids that honesty is going to get them ahead, because you will be teaching them something that is not true in a great many cases.
posted by bingo at 7:05 AM on May 30, 2006

The really unbelievable part is that anyone could behave this way - threaten a manager? - and then be so credulous as to proceed to eat what they're served.

I know a lot of people in the food and beverage business, and there is usually enough animosity between management and waitstaff that if you are seen giving a manager grief, you will be treated like a king by the waitstaff. On the other hand, you definitely don't want to mistreat your servers. Even if they don't tamper with your food (rare but does happen) they will take their time with your drink order, let your food get cold, or otherwise put you low on their list of priorities. This is especially true if they have reason to believe you won't tip well.
posted by TedW at 7:07 AM on May 30, 2006

Peeking at the guest list and giving that name is very common at clubs, although experienced doormen shield the list from prying eyes. Some people have highly evolved methods for seeing the list, grabbing a name, then returning with another person claiming to be the guest.

Some people also realise that the name of a journalist who writes about nightclubs is almost certain to be on the list at half the clubs in town on any given night, and so use that name. Those people were the bane of my life for several years. (As were bouncers saying, 'I don't care what it says on your ID. If your name is crossed off the list, you're already in the club'!)
posted by jack_mo at 8:07 AM on May 30, 2006

I feel that if the guy's first solution to getting a table was grabbing a water pitcher and flashing a couple hundred-dollar bills, he just *may* have pissed off the manager prior to that. That's not really the sign of a stable personality, or a guy I would go out of my way to help.

To answer your question, I've never done it, though I've occasionally been with people who were regulars enough that we'd get bumped up the list when an earlier party didn't show.
posted by occhiblu at 9:32 AM on May 30, 2006

On one first date, we were on waitlist at a place that took no phone reservations, and expecting quite the wait. Fortunately, they had a "three-call" policy, and another party had walked off before they were called. On the third call for "Jacobs, Party of three?" my date and I walked up and apologized for not responding more promptly but we were waiting for the third member of our party, who was apparently not going to show. We were seated immediately.
By the time we heard "Bastard, party of two" over the PA we were halfway through our entrees. Not actual theft, more like claiming abandoned property.
posted by BigLankyBastard at 11:14 AM on May 30, 2006

I've done this once, by accident. We went to the Lone Star in Toronto, near the Air Canada Centre, on a Leafs game night. This means that there are TONS of people waiting. I put us down for Ryan, party of two, and they said it would be about 45 minutes. 5 minutes later, they called for Ryan, party of two. We promptly went up and got seated. About 30 minutes later, we heard them announce "Ryan, party of two" again, and saw a rather irate couple being led into the dining area. So, it seems as though we poached their table unintentionally, but I blame it on the hostess, who didn't realize that there were *2* parties of the same size with the same name.
posted by antifuse at 4:15 AM on June 2, 2006