A Chicago Chef Speaks Out About Diners Who Skip Out On Their Reservations

By Anthony Todd in Food on Aug 10, 2016 4:38PM

Chef Jason Vincent of Giant.

A few weeks ago, we observed an awesome conversation taking place on social media. It was prompted by Chef Jason Vincent at Giant, and centered around whether or not a restaurant should charge a customer if they don't show up for a reservation. There were all sorts of opinions, ranging from "yes, absolutely, charge them every time" to "the customer is always right," to "make everyone buy a ticket," and the discussion remained impressively cordial. We wanted to learn more, so we sat down with Vincent to find out what his takeaway was from the whole conversation, and what his plan was for Giant.

Vincent first explained that his concern wasn't prompted because Giant is in the midst of a no-show epidemic, but that he felt badly for friends who missed out on seats at the restaurant to some no-shows.

"We have a lot of friends who have been supportive of the restaurant," Vincent said, "And I’ve had to tell them that I don’t have any room for them, and then I'm looking at an empty table that night because someone doesn't show up. I take that personally."

The sensitivity to no-shows has to do with the mathematics of running a small restaurant—their margins are small, there are only so many seats, and if a seat stays empty on a Friday or a Saturday night, that can be a real problem. "Restaurants plan," says Vincent. "All we do is plan. Then the x factor is the people. Once you introduce that, you just don’t know what's going to happen."

The best solution, as far as Vincent is concerned, is to make it clear that the restaurant is excited about walk-in business. Giant is reserving the entire kitchen counter for walk-ins, and is considering saving even more space. To him, this is a middle ground between the extremes of always charging and never charging; making sure that the seats get filled, without making anyone too angry.

Vincent (and many other chefs, I suspect) are uncomfortable with any single approach to this problem: "If we’re drawing a line in the sand, it becomes very confusing. I prefer to treat everyone like people, and when people fuck up, let’s think about it. Let’s question it and make sure it doesn’t happen again."

He even applies this attitude to his kitchen staff. "I’m not going to scream at someone if they burn a steak, and I’m not going to scream at someone if they don’t show up," he said.

Ticketing, a popular solution among some chefs, isn't on Vincent's list, partially because Vincent doesn't want Giant to be a "fancy place" and partly because he's nervous about trying something new and untested. "I’m on the hook for a half million dollars and i don’t want to roll the dice," he says.

However, that doesn't mean his solution is apathy. Rather, he's focused on gathering information about customers so his staff can make individual decisions. He hopes to use his reservation system to keep track of no-shows, so that chronic offenders can be singled out. "If someone doesn't show up 3 times in a row, we’re going to call them and tell them we can’t honor it."

At the end of the day Vincent, and chefs like him, are concerned with doing the right thing and creating a great experience for the guests—but they have to keep the bottom line in mind. "I want to do this place right," he said. "I don’t want to rock the boat, but i’m also not going to let a cancer spread. It’s not cool to not show up."