Alinea Announces Ticket Sales

By Anthony Todd in Food on Jul 27, 2012 3:15PM

We've been hearing rumors for months that Alinea was going to switch to a ticketing system, based on the success (if you want to call it that) of the system at Next. Achatz announced in March that the change would happen in June, but it finally just switched over - all reservations at Alinea as of August must be made via the ticketing system.

In an announcement on the Alinea website, they explained the new system:

"Alinea will be selling tickets rather than accepting traditional restaurant reservations beginning with the August 2012 bookings. Tickets will be sold for the Tasting menu only. A service charge and tax will be added upon checkout. All beverage selections including our wine pairings, wines by the bottle, non-alcoholic options, and coffee and tea service may be ordered and paid for when you dine."

Tickets vary between $210 and $265 depending on the day of the week.

There are a lot of potential problems with this, as well as some benefits. Most of the benefits are from the restaurant's side: guaranteed profit, the ability to tailor pricing to demand, fewer paid employees answering phones and a way to stop the problem of no-shows. All ticket sales are final, so they get their money no matter what.

From a diner's perspective, however, it's a little more ambiguous. We've just about given up on Next, not because it's entirely impossible to get tickets but because it's just so much trouble. Normal restaurants don't get to change prices based on the popularity of a particular day; is this simply an acceptable response to supply and demand, or is it price gouging? This may weed out some of the less-serious diners, but for such a tourist-attraction of a restaurant, we'll be interested to how out-of-towners react to being told they can't just book a reservation.

Update (10:41): According to Grubstreet Chicago, all the tickets for August sold out in the first few hours. Looks like we'll all be waiting till September now - and good luck booking more than a month in advance.