Good luck booking that big birthday dinner
Busy restaurants, especially in big cities, are pushing back against parties of six or more people. As Alina Dizik wrote in The Wall Street Journal, some restaurants no longer accept reservations of that size, and if they do, the reservation comes with strings attached.
“Marketplace” host Kai Ryssdal spoke with Dizik, a contributor to the Journal, about the trend. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.
Kai Ryssdal: I will say at the outset here, and I think I’ve said this on the program before, I have a family of six. And what I read in this article is that if we want to go out together, all six of us, they’re not going to take us or it’s going to be really hard to get a table. What’s going on?
Alina Dizik: So if you do have a family of six and you decide to go to a busy city restaurant or something a little bit more trendy or on some sort of list, they will be probably more reluctant to take your party. They really prefer tables of two or tables of four.
Ryssdal: Again, I’m not objective on this, but that seems kind of unfair. What’s the business model thing going on here for restaurant owners and managers?
Dizik: So when I spoke to restaurant owners, they say that taking smaller tables really allows them to speed up service and deliver better service, and so people are more likely to have a good experience. And they’re more likely to leave sooner than, say, a table of six or a table of eight.
Ryssdal: Also, it has to be a labor force thing too, right? I mean, everybody’s jammed for staff these days. And if they haven’t got enough people, you know, it’s a challenge.
Dizik: That’s right. A lot of the restaurants I spoke to said that, you know, they don’t want to stress out their existing employees by having to wait on a very large table. And larger tables really back up the kitchen and kind of require more waitstaff that some of them are unable to even have in a single evening.
Ryssdal: I read in this piece that if I really want to get my party of six in there, or more, I should do it before 5 or after 8 p.m.
Dizik: If you have a larger party, restaurants are more likely to seat you at a time when there are, you know, fewer other tables that are dining. So at 5 p.m. or after the rush around 8 or 8:30.
Ryssdal: Are there any tips or tricks you can offer me and the listening public out there if we got, you know, me and my wife and two other couples, and boom, there’s six? What do we do if we want to go out and have a nice time?
Dizik: So in terms of tips and tricks, I think most people said that they had the most luck really just calling the restaurant and leveling with them. And they said that they are accommodating, up to a point. Some of the folks I talked to said that they actually make reservations for a smaller number and then call the restaurant saying, we already have this reservation, can we expand that by a couple of people?
Ryssdal: Last thing, getting us back to where we started. You specifically said if you are going to a city restaurant. So big cities, this is an issue. But out somewhere, maybe in suburbia, you’re gonna get away with it?
Dizik: I think in some suburban restaurants, and outside of the larger cities or outside of the most popular restaurants, they can’t dictate as much in terms of table sizes. They’ll take whoever comes through the door because they need the business.
Ryssdal: So when you go out, is it, like, a party of two? Or are you out with a big group?
Dizik: I feel always very hopeful that I can dine out with a big group. So I’m always that person calling [the restaurant] or coming in to talk to them earlier to see if there’s any sort of workaround to eat with more than just a few people.
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