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There are a few ways to encourage people to leave once they're basically done. All of those involve providing more customer service, (e.g. "Can I get you anything else?"). NONE of those involve directly asking the diners to leave in order to sit new customers. That's simply poor management.
Exactly. Don't go to any restaurant on Valentines Day, any brunch place on Mother's Day, or any Bar on New Year's Eve.
I am not excusing her behavior, but holiday dinner reservations must be tricky for a restaurant. We don't go out on holidays anymore either, but I remember some New years Eves when, upon making a 7 pm dinner reservation, we were told that they were booking at 2 hour intervals, so we were expected to leave by 9:00. As long as we know the program, I'm OK with it. In the OPs situation, it wasn't his fault the service was slow.
I have written about this before, but we have encountered the bums rush over and over again at higher end restaurants lately, and I don't know if it is because we're in a different state, or if it is the same everywhere now. Not too many years ago, we went out a lot more often, and it was a leisurely experience, with plenty of time to have drinks and wine and conversation with friends. Being rushed is one of the reasons we don't dine out as often now.
A busy restaurant is all about turnover but that was in bad taste asking you to leave before you were done. What if you or your hubby wanted another drink?
I hate being rushed even in a cheap place. I don't like when the wait staff starts clearing the table while I am still eating or when the check comes while we are still eating.
Going out to eat especially at a high end place is all about the experience. A shame they lost you as a customer but I don't blame you.
Disgraceful. I would definitely not be going back there, ever.
We were on the other end last night for Valentine's day. We had 9 pm reservations at a very nice restaurant. Even though we arrived on time we had to wait over 45 minutes for our table, in an extremely crowded and cramped waiting area. Clearly they had overbooked. But it was just as clear that they were not shoving customers out the door when they were done. I hated the waiting, but once we got our table the dining experience was great. I was a bit disappointed that they only offered an apology for the late seating. Better management would have found some some way to compensate us. I wasn't expecting any sort of compensation, and of course I would never ask for it. But if the situation was bad enough for the hostess to offer an unprompted apology from the management, then it was bad enough that some sort of compensation was in order ("your cocktail is on us", for example).
Could have been handled better, but I can't blame them. They've probably got a foyer packed slam full of people waiting for tables. People who are going to continue to wait because they know that they're not getting a table any faster anywhere else.
She could have given us five minutes after paying the bill to finish drinks. The second he put down the pen, she was at the table asking us to leave. It was like 'We collected your $200, so time for you to go.' We were already eating our meal in the lounge/bar area.
My boyfriend suggested that she thought we were lying about having reservations in the first place, which seems plausible given the way she spoke to us at the end of the meal. I also think they may have overbooked - there was a blizzard predicted, so a lot of people were canceling reservations. The snow started later than expected.
Whatever the problems they had that night, the way she spoke to us was extremely rude. She wasn't apologetic about asking us to leave, losing our reservation, or the slow service. She talked to us like we were monopolizing the table and sitting in someone else's seat. She could have told us when she sat us that the table was free until X time and we would have skipped the after dinner dessert and drinks.
Why didn't you speak to the manager at the time this happened?
I would like to hear from someone in the restaurant business. Is it normal to overbook a restaurant on a holiday? I would think one could easily fill a no-show table with a walk in, so I would not do it, for fear of alienating people.
I think here in Savannah, or any tourist town, there is so much tourist business that the restaurants have mostly one time diners rather than steady clientele, so I guess they don't care so much if someone leaves pissed off.
IMO I don't pay until I'm ready to leave, that sort of opened the door to shoo you out. JM2c
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