I remember when a night out used to be so much easier to plan. You work all week and look forward to "date night" with great anticipation. Well, honestly along with all of the anticipation of a great night out comes a little agitation or frustration. It is the wait at restaurants that drive me crazy. I understand that there are a lot of people that have a similar plan. They too work all week and want to go out for dinner and enjoy sitting down to a great meal that they didn't have to prepare. I understand they have a similar plan, but that doesn't mean that I understand why I have to wait in line with them. This may sound a little cold, but the answer to my problem is very simple....bring back the option of making a reservation!
I realize that to the business owner the process of accepting and holding reservations can equal a loss of money and customers, but it doesn't have to be that way. As I was waiting in line to enjoy a dinner out with my husband the other evening it got me thinking that there has to be a better way. It isn't very often that my husband and I get an evening out by ourselves and we really don't want to spend 30 to 45 minutes of it standing around with total strangers in a crowded area that wasn't originally intended to handle it's current amount of traffic. Because of the small area everyone ends up either sitting really close together, having to constantly shuffle around to get out of the way, or stand in a cold breezy door way. So, naturally I started thinking about how to improve the situation.
In my opinion, restaurants could take reservations and secure a large percentage of their profit. If upon taking the reservation for seating at their establishment if restaurant owners would take a credit card to use as a deposit then I think their problem would be solved. If the patrons showed up for their reservation on time then of course they would dine there and the restaurant would make its profit. If on the other hand the people did not show up for their reservation the establishment could charge for example a $25 cancellation fee it the reservations were not met of cancelled within a set amount of time. I realize that this could be an inconvenience for the customer if their plans did not work out, but I would be a great convenience the majority of the time. If the set up did not work for the customer I sure there would continue to be lots of restaurants that they could continue to go to and get the convenience was waiting in line.
I would enjoy being able to plan an evening out and be able to know about how long dinner would take and not have to wait in line. We have to wait in line for so many things, fast food, groceries, banks, and so on, it would be nice to not have that frustration with trying to have an enjoyable evening.
I think your plan sounds awesome! I work in the restaurant industry and we don't have reservations, except for parties, and even then sometimes they don't show.
ReplyDeleteThat is an interesting solution. I also don't like to wait in line, but it has become such a common thing that I just expect it. Maybe your idea will catch on!
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