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I can speak to this! I was "canceled" in 2014...before it was cool...for doing exactly this[0] A couple reasons restaurants don't do this: 1) Loss of quality

I can speak to this! I was "canceled" in 2014...before it was cool...for doing exactly this[0] A couple reasons restaurants don't do this: 1) Loss of quality control over customer experience. For example they provide a $100 dinner, but the client expects a $200 dinner. That creates bad experience 2) Desire to maintain accessibility on price point (same reasons artists don't charge more for tickets) and perceived inequities of charging extra for reservations 3) Rewarding loyal customers who value the food / brand / hospitality rather than the highest bidder which tends to bring in out-of-towners, Amex centurion card holders, wannabe influencers -- people that don't help create loyalty There are many other reasons I'm sure as well. Most chefs/GMs/owners I talked to at the time emphasized that they sincerely are not in this for the money, and yes, they like to make a living, but being able to build a community of food lovers who are passionate about their brand is what they really care about. I ended up pivoting to try to build a shift management app soon thereafter...didn't work out but a good entrepreneurship lesson! [0]https://techcrunch.com/2014/07/03/everyone-seems-mad-at-reservation-hop-founder-admits-he-was-taken-aback-by-the-criticism/ https://techcrunch.com/2014/07/03/everyone-seems-mad-at-rese...

MichaelZuo 3y ago
These reasons seem to only apply if the surcharge applied to every reservation? Could only charging for peak times cause these downsides?
- sumtechguy 3y ago
  There is another way. It involves no money and nothing for the restaurant to do. First come first serve. Basically you want in. Show up and stand in line.
  - touisteur 3y ago
    Many places in Paris do that now with virtual waiting line (show up, get a number and an ETA, get bipped when it's about to be your turn...). Nice when in a walkable nice neighborhood.
    - twosdai 3y ago
      Happens a lot in upstate ny too, been to a few places like this. For what it's worth.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    One downside is that means you basically can't go to that restaurant pre-theater or pre- some other fixed time event. Though you're eating earlier if you're doing that anyway.
  - rat9988 3y ago
    Sure, that's how it works, and reservation is the solution to it, not the other way around.
    - sumtechguy 3y ago
      They are talking about putting something like ticketmaster in the middle of this. That is scalper city. Oh then a band aid to make it work right. Then another then another. Most restaurants run on a thin margin. All of those band aids will cost money. Something the 'ticketmaster' system is not going to eat.
  - YetAnotherNick 3y ago
    Depends. For me, being in home is much better option than standing in a queue with unknown waiting time just to get the previlige of eating in a restaurant. Most people go to resturant not as neccessity but a optional visit to spend good time. And this solution takes away good time. I agree for places like doctors visit though. Everyone should stand in queue rather than a limited reservation.
    - antasvara 3y ago
      >I agree for places like doctors visit though. Everyone should stand in queue rather than a limited reservation. What if my work schedule isn't flexible? Having a queue and no option for an appointment time means that I'll essentially never be able to guarantee a doctor's visit. I'll just have to schedule time off and pray that the line isn't too long.
  - omoikane 3y ago
    That might work for a more casual kind of restaurant, where you would just go somewhere else if you can't afford to wait in line. It doesn't work for the more upscale restaurants, some of which are reservation only.
asdff 3y ago
It was never cool. Popular and profitable no doubt today, but literally every consumer there is hates the dynamic pricing model.
- kelnos 3y ago
  I think the GP was referring to "cancelling people" when he said "before it was cool". But I do agree with your point ;)
- 7thaccount 3y ago
  Speaking of dynamic pricing, there are a lot of people foaming at the mouth to get this to replace the fixed rate electric utility bill. There are pro/cons to both sides (i.e. efficiency versus safety and simplicity for the end customer). In this case, I don't mean dynamic pricing to mean paying a little more during peak hours, but being directly exposed to the wholesale prices. It would certainly help get people to consume less during major events and many assume it to be a necessity to make a fully renewable grid work. On the other hand, I struggle with the relentless need to complicate daily life (e.g. being prodded to have an app for everything that doesn't need one).
  - floatrock 3y ago
    Where are people foaming at the mouth for this? Time-of-use rates (peak vs off peak hours) have been around forever. Power users (huh, pun…) like ev owners do it, or new construction sometimes isn’t given an option, but that’s hardly foaming at the mouth. I heard it tossed around in places like Texas, but most people realize it’s risky AF cause one high-demand day, eg from a polar vortex gone unusually far south, could easily wipe you right out. Is it like a group of off-grid enthusiasts who can go a day or two off generators or batteries that make all this foam?
    - 7thaccount 3y ago
      I wasn't referring to TOU pricing, but actually exposing residential customers to the wholesale market prices that a commenter below pointed out typically run every 5 minutes in most parts of the US. The utilities and actual generator owners bid into this ultra-complex auction and get an instruction on where to go every 5 minutes that minimizes operating costs and determines prices at every node. These prices are extremely volatile (pretty much the most volatile major commodity) and change rapidly in short periods of time (example: from $25/MWh to $5000/MWh within a few minutes). The bigger players deal with these prices by hedging in various forward markets and through other contracts. There is a big push from academia and a lot of the big names in the industry to have the residential customers exposed to that so the demand side of the auction finally starts working which solves a lot of the pre-existing problems coming from running a market where demand is almost entirely inelastic. I shouldn't have used "foaming at the mouth" as the connotation is pretty negative. I should have said extremely committed or something like that. These are all smart and good people trying to solve a major problem that's been ongoing for decades. The economist in me agrees with them, but part of me also has an aversion to the constant complexity creep in our lives as well as risk.
paxys 3y ago
I mean yeah, doing it as a third party service without the restaurant's involvement or consent will obviously get you backlash. People aren't pissed with Dorsia, for example, which does it right.
- bmmayer1 3y ago
  It was almost a decade ago, and the experiment lasted a week, and I earned $20 total...so I assume everyone has let it go at this point ;)
  - lupire 3y ago
    Eye opening to be reminded that "startup" business on the Internet that make the industry news are often really just little hobby projects.
    - bmmayer1 3y ago
      That was my learning too. Went viral for a side project I did on my couch in 5 hours when I was bored.
- kelipso 3y ago
  Lol yeah, it's literally just scalping via an app.
dylan604 3y ago
> 2) Desire to maintain accessibility on price point (same reasons artists don't charge more for tickets) since when were there not different prices for tickets based on seating? if a concert is only one or two nights, then the nose bleed seats could be the same as eating at the restaurant on a Tuesday night, while the front row seats would be eating on Friday nights.
- bear141 3y ago
  The pricing tiers you are describing are not created by the artists. This is the venue or the ticket distributor doing this.
- ada1981 3y ago
  Artist for sure are colluding to sell tickets at higher prices into the secondary market. Ticketmaster as well is offering “Platinum” tickets which are just more expensive tickets with no better views or perks.
kelnos 3y ago
People hated your business because you brought ticket scalping to the restaurant world. Many years ago, I went on a couple dates with a 'professional' ticket scalper; as soon as I found out what she did (which she tried to hide with several all-too-transparent euphemisms), I noped right out of there. These people are the worst of capitalism. I don't think most people mind when a restaurant sells the moral equivalent of tickets to dining slots ahead of time. I've visited restaurants that do that, and had no problem with it. The issue is that you were taking something that was free (open reservation slots), and then forcing people to pay for them if they wanted to dine there... when they could have just made a reservation -- perhaps farther in advance -- for free. I agree that most people in the restaurant business aren't in it for the money (if they are, they've picked the wrong industry). But scalping reservations to their restaurants is making things worse, not better.
- earleybird 3y ago
  Fair to say "exploiting the commons for personal gain"?
- jonathankoren 3y ago
  > (which she tried to hide with several all-too-transparent euphemisms "market maker" ?
- wolverine876 3y ago
  > These people are the worst of capitalism. That's pretty strong. I won't name all the people doing much worse, but lots of people do jobs that are only about profit, such as much of the finance industry, tech industry, etc. If she was a developer for Google's ad system, would you do the same?
- subarctic 3y ago
  Curious to hear what these euphemisms were
  - satvikpendem 3y ago
    Bringing efficiency to a sub-utilized market, perhaps.
kazinator 3y ago
Rather than charging for reservations, there could be a deposit that is applied toward your restaurant bill. The deposit could be refundable up to some cancellation period before the reservation, like 48h or whatever.
- narrator 3y ago
  If you want to eat Le Tour d'Argent in Paris, the world's oldest restaurant, you have to pay $500 per person in advance just to make a reservation.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- cmcaleer 3y ago
  Exactly what a high end place I went to in London did. Seemed fair enough. Places are in demand but I’m not being screwed in to paying for the privilege of being able to pay, but at the cost of locked in to committing or lose £50 to cancel on short notice. I’d be fine with this being more normal.
  - jimmywetnips 3y ago
    Almost every high level, Michelin type restaurant does this
    - satvikpendem 3y ago
      The pricing is not dynamic though, at any Michelin restaurant I've been to. Even if it were, I'm not sure there would be any change though if the consumer knows that their net cost would remain the same, so it doesn't really matter how much the restaurant charges for the reservation fee.
      - ajmurmann 3y ago
        This is the segment where I least understand the lack of surge pricing. Noma closed because "it wasn't sustainable". Meanwhile people made reservations as soon as they opened up and traveled there from across the globe. I know I'd paid more than they charged and I'm no billionaire.
solatic 3y ago
> Rewarding loyal customers Restaurant reservations are fundamentally different compared to, say, Taylor Swift concert tickets. Loyalty to an artist is multi-channel (concert tickets, merchandise, CD, streaming) and thus difficult to track and reward. Restaurant reservations occur at a single point of sale. It is much simpler, conceptually, to first offer up Friday 7pm reservations to people who have dined with you in the past, at a lower price, then open them up for a higher price to the general public if they haven't sold within a reasonable time frame.
Incipient 3y ago
I'm not sure if the article you linked was misleading, but it really just made it sound like you were scalping reservations. No wonder everyone hated on it. If you facilitated the restaurants adjusting prices for prime bookings, then maybe it would have come across differently. Also nearly 10 years later, the world is a much worse place. I wouldn't be surprised if blatant booking scalping didn't really raise any eyebrows.
ajmurmann 3y ago
El Buli had some of this figured out decades ago. They set reservations aside for locals from their little town and another portion for people from Spain. However, you had to write an application(!) instead of using an auction for the remainder. At least for ultra-fine dining like El Buli, Noma or Central 1) should be irrelevant. I've had this argument with restaurateurs before and it seems that they are a lot more concerned about some magical "fair" prices than much of the customer base. I've looked several times into traveling to Copenhagen to eat at Noma. At that point, who gives a shit if the meal is $300 or $1,000?! It all pales compared to the travel cost. If people aren't willing to pay it, the auction won't go that high. Easy peasy! And then I keep hearing that fine dining isn't sustainable. Just charge more!
- lupire 3y ago
  You "looking" into travelling doesn't pay Noma's bills. Fad places where "the high price is the attraction" like the Salt Bozo aren't sustainable because the fad passes.
  - ajmurmann 3y ago
    Me flying to Spain and going to Arzak which has been around for many decades certainly paid their bills. It's telling that most people on tables around us were speaking English as well.
19h 3y ago
Actually what I like best is a refundable fee for no-show: there’s a restaurant I rarely visit by myself but often when I want to have a nice time with people from abroad; it’s a restaurant on the 16th level with an amazing view over Berlin. Essentially, they’ll bill you 50€ per person and you’ll get it back (aka the authorization is cancelled) when you show up, but the transaction is executed when you don’t. A few years back there were many empty tables during prime time because of the reservations, and now there’s barely any table unused. It seems to work and I’m absolutely happy to reassure the restaurant with money that I’ll be there.
lupire 3y ago
Maybe you next startup idea will be more successful: an app for tracking the location of well stocked give-a-penny/take-a-penny trays to raid, or collecting and reselling all the samples from grocery displays. Maybe make a FakeryBakery pay kids a commission to collect grocery story Kids Club Cookies and resell them.as half-price boxes.
- phanimahesh 3y ago
  This comes off as excessively negative. They had a hypothesis, found out it isn't how they thought both from consumer and restaurent perspectives, moved away. Far worse ideas sprout everyday and many get positive attention as well. Judge the process along with the idea. With the context in this thread I would implement it as dynamic cancellation fees. You pay to reserve, but 100% reedeemable on bills. If you cancel, you lose a clearly notified percentage based on how popular the time slot is. Might work while still staying true to the idea of fairness.

MichaelZuo 3y ago

These reasons seem to only apply if the surcharge applied to every reservation? Could only charging for peak times cause these downsides?

sumtechguy 3y ago
There is another way. It involves no money and nothing for the restaurant to do. First come first serve. Basically you want in. Show up and stand in line.
- touisteur 3y ago
  Many places in Paris do that now with virtual waiting line (show up, get a number and an ETA, get bipped when it's about to be your turn...). Nice when in a walkable nice neighborhood.
  - twosdai 3y ago
    Happens a lot in upstate ny too, been to a few places like this. For what it's worth.
- ghaff 3y ago
  One downside is that means you basically can't go to that restaurant pre-theater or pre- some other fixed time event. Though you're eating earlier if you're doing that anyway.
- rat9988 3y ago
  Sure, that's how it works, and reservation is the solution to it, not the other way around.
  - sumtechguy 3y ago
    They are talking about putting something like ticketmaster in the middle of this. That is scalper city. Oh then a band aid to make it work right. Then another then another. Most restaurants run on a thin margin. All of those band aids will cost money. Something the 'ticketmaster' system is not going to eat.
- YetAnotherNick 3y ago
  Depends. For me, being in home is much better option than standing in a queue with unknown waiting time just to get the previlige of eating in a restaurant. Most people go to resturant not as neccessity but a optional visit to spend good time. And this solution takes away good time. I agree for places like doctors visit though. Everyone should stand in queue rather than a limited reservation.
  - antasvara 3y ago
    >I agree for places like doctors visit though. Everyone should stand in queue rather than a limited reservation. What if my work schedule isn't flexible? Having a queue and no option for an appointment time means that I'll essentially never be able to guarantee a doctor's visit. I'll just have to schedule time off and pray that the line isn't too long.
- omoikane 3y ago
  That might work for a more casual kind of restaurant, where you would just go somewhere else if you can't afford to wait in line. It doesn't work for the more upscale restaurants, some of which are reservation only.

asdff 3y ago

It was never cool. Popular and profitable no doubt today, but literally every consumer there is hates the dynamic pricing model.

kelnos 3y ago
I think the GP was referring to "cancelling people" when he said "before it was cool". But I do agree with your point ;)
7thaccount 3y ago
Speaking of dynamic pricing, there are a lot of people foaming at the mouth to get this to replace the fixed rate electric utility bill. There are pro/cons to both sides (i.e. efficiency versus safety and simplicity for the end customer). In this case, I don't mean dynamic pricing to mean paying a little more during peak hours, but being directly exposed to the wholesale prices. It would certainly help get people to consume less during major events and many assume it to be a necessity to make a fully renewable grid work. On the other hand, I struggle with the relentless need to complicate daily life (e.g. being prodded to have an app for everything that doesn't need one).
- floatrock 3y ago
  Where are people foaming at the mouth for this? Time-of-use rates (peak vs off peak hours) have been around forever. Power users (huh, pun…) like ev owners do it, or new construction sometimes isn’t given an option, but that’s hardly foaming at the mouth. I heard it tossed around in places like Texas, but most people realize it’s risky AF cause one high-demand day, eg from a polar vortex gone unusually far south, could easily wipe you right out. Is it like a group of off-grid enthusiasts who can go a day or two off generators or batteries that make all this foam?
  - 7thaccount 3y ago
    I wasn't referring to TOU pricing, but actually exposing residential customers to the wholesale market prices that a commenter below pointed out typically run every 5 minutes in most parts of the US. The utilities and actual generator owners bid into this ultra-complex auction and get an instruction on where to go every 5 minutes that minimizes operating costs and determines prices at every node. These prices are extremely volatile (pretty much the most volatile major commodity) and change rapidly in short periods of time (example: from $25/MWh to $5000/MWh within a few minutes). The bigger players deal with these prices by hedging in various forward markets and through other contracts. There is a big push from academia and a lot of the big names in the industry to have the residential customers exposed to that so the demand side of the auction finally starts working which solves a lot of the pre-existing problems coming from running a market where demand is almost entirely inelastic. I shouldn't have used "foaming at the mouth" as the connotation is pretty negative. I should have said extremely committed or something like that. These are all smart and good people trying to solve a major problem that's been ongoing for decades. The economist in me agrees with them, but part of me also has an aversion to the constant complexity creep in our lives as well as risk.

paxys 3y ago

I mean yeah, doing it as a third party service without the restaurant's involvement or consent will obviously get you backlash. People aren't pissed with Dorsia, for example, which does it right.

bmmayer1 3y ago
It was almost a decade ago, and the experiment lasted a week, and I earned $20 total...so I assume everyone has let it go at this point ;)
- lupire 3y ago
  Eye opening to be reminded that "startup" business on the Internet that make the industry news are often really just little hobby projects.
  - bmmayer1 3y ago
    That was my learning too. Went viral for a side project I did on my couch in 5 hours when I was bored.
kelipso 3y ago
Lol yeah, it's literally just scalping via an app.

dylan604 3y ago

> 2) Desire to maintain accessibility on price point (same reasons artists don't charge more for tickets) since when were there not different prices for tickets based on seating? if a concert is only one or two nights, then the nose bleed seats could be the same as eating at the restaurant on a Tuesday night, while the front row seats would be eating on Friday nights.

bear141 3y ago
The pricing tiers you are describing are not created by the artists. This is the venue or the ticket distributor doing this.
ada1981 3y ago
Artist for sure are colluding to sell tickets at higher prices into the secondary market. Ticketmaster as well is offering “Platinum” tickets which are just more expensive tickets with no better views or perks.

kelnos 3y ago

People hated your business because you brought ticket scalping to the restaurant world. Many years ago, I went on a couple dates with a 'professional' ticket scalper; as soon as I found out what she did (which she tried to hide with several all-too-transparent euphemisms), I noped right out of there. These people are the worst of capitalism. I don't think most people mind when a restaurant sells the moral equivalent of tickets to dining slots ahead of time. I've visited restaurants that do that, and had no problem with it. The issue is that you were taking something that was free (open reservation slots), and then forcing people to pay for them if they wanted to dine there... when they could have just made a reservation -- perhaps farther in advance -- for free. I agree that most people in the restaurant business aren't in it for the money (if they are, they've picked the wrong industry). But scalping reservations to their restaurants is making things worse, not better.

earleybird 3y ago
Fair to say "exploiting the commons for personal gain"?
jonathankoren 3y ago
> (which she tried to hide with several all-too-transparent euphemisms "market maker" ?
wolverine876 3y ago
> These people are the worst of capitalism. That's pretty strong. I won't name all the people doing much worse, but lots of people do jobs that are only about profit, such as much of the finance industry, tech industry, etc. If she was a developer for Google's ad system, would you do the same?
subarctic 3y ago
Curious to hear what these euphemisms were
- satvikpendem 3y ago
  Bringing efficiency to a sub-utilized market, perhaps.

kazinator 3y ago

Rather than charging for reservations, there could be a deposit that is applied toward your restaurant bill. The deposit could be refundable up to some cancellation period before the reservation, like 48h or whatever.

narrator 3y ago
If you want to eat Le Tour d'Argent in Paris, the world's oldest restaurant, you have to pay $500 per person in advance just to make a reservation.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
cmcaleer 3y ago
Exactly what a high end place I went to in London did. Seemed fair enough. Places are in demand but I’m not being screwed in to paying for the privilege of being able to pay, but at the cost of locked in to committing or lose £50 to cancel on short notice. I’d be fine with this being more normal.
- jimmywetnips 3y ago
  Almost every high level, Michelin type restaurant does this
  - satvikpendem 3y ago
    The pricing is not dynamic though, at any Michelin restaurant I've been to. Even if it were, I'm not sure there would be any change though if the consumer knows that their net cost would remain the same, so it doesn't really matter how much the restaurant charges for the reservation fee.
    - ajmurmann 3y ago
      This is the segment where I least understand the lack of surge pricing. Noma closed because "it wasn't sustainable". Meanwhile people made reservations as soon as they opened up and traveled there from across the globe. I know I'd paid more than they charged and I'm no billionaire.

solatic 3y ago

> Rewarding loyal customers Restaurant reservations are fundamentally different compared to, say, Taylor Swift concert tickets. Loyalty to an artist is multi-channel (concert tickets, merchandise, CD, streaming) and thus difficult to track and reward. Restaurant reservations occur at a single point of sale. It is much simpler, conceptually, to first offer up Friday 7pm reservations to people who have dined with you in the past, at a lower price, then open them up for a higher price to the general public if they haven't sold within a reasonable time frame.

Incipient 3y ago

I'm not sure if the article you linked was misleading, but it really just made it sound like you were scalping reservations. No wonder everyone hated on it. If you facilitated the restaurants adjusting prices for prime bookings, then maybe it would have come across differently. Also nearly 10 years later, the world is a much worse place. I wouldn't be surprised if blatant booking scalping didn't really raise any eyebrows.

ajmurmann 3y ago

El Buli had some of this figured out decades ago. They set reservations aside for locals from their little town and another portion for people from Spain. However, you had to write an application(!) instead of using an auction for the remainder. At least for ultra-fine dining like El Buli, Noma or Central 1) should be irrelevant. I've had this argument with restaurateurs before and it seems that they are a lot more concerned about some magical "fair" prices than much of the customer base. I've looked several times into traveling to Copenhagen to eat at Noma. At that point, who gives a shit if the meal is $300 or $1,000?! It all pales compared to the travel cost. If people aren't willing to pay it, the auction won't go that high. Easy peasy! And then I keep hearing that fine dining isn't sustainable. Just charge more!

lupire 3y ago
You "looking" into travelling doesn't pay Noma's bills. Fad places where "the high price is the attraction" like the Salt Bozo aren't sustainable because the fad passes.
- ajmurmann 3y ago
  Me flying to Spain and going to Arzak which has been around for many decades certainly paid their bills. It's telling that most people on tables around us were speaking English as well.

19h 3y ago

Actually what I like best is a refundable fee for no-show: there’s a restaurant I rarely visit by myself but often when I want to have a nice time with people from abroad; it’s a restaurant on the 16th level with an amazing view over Berlin. Essentially, they’ll bill you 50€ per person and you’ll get it back (aka the authorization is cancelled) when you show up, but the transaction is executed when you don’t. A few years back there were many empty tables during prime time because of the reservations, and now there’s barely any table unused. It seems to work and I’m absolutely happy to reassure the restaurant with money that I’ll be there.

lupire 3y ago

Maybe you next startup idea will be more successful: an app for tracking the location of well stocked give-a-penny/take-a-penny trays to raid, or collecting and reselling all the samples from grocery displays. Maybe make a FakeryBakery pay kids a commission to collect grocery story Kids Club Cookies and resell them.as half-price boxes.

phanimahesh 3y ago
This comes off as excessively negative. They had a hypothesis, found out it isn't how they thought both from consumer and restaurent perspectives, moved away. Far worse ideas sprout everyday and many get positive attention as well. Judge the process along with the idea. With the context in this thread I would implement it as dynamic cancellation fees. You pay to reserve, but 100% reedeemable on bills. If you cancel, you lose a clearly notified percentage based on how popular the time slot is. Might work while still staying true to the idea of fairness.