A reader sides with Tyler Cowen on the question:
Once again, Chicago leads the way while New York sleeps – especially in the restaurant world. Consider Next Restaurant in the city’s Fulton Market District, run by famed chef Grant Achatz. You can only get a table by buying a ticket or by buying a subscription to the three different menus that the restaurant offers throughout the year. I don’t know how many people are on the waiting list now, but when the restaurant opened in 2011, some 20,000 people signed up for the privilege of making a reservation. The restaurant (and its adjacent lounge, The Aviary) are hot, hot tickets, and prices can run nearly $500 a plate. This is not a reservation you miss.
Another is less enthusiastic:
I’m not sure how charging for reservations would fix the problem of customers showing up late and complaining about not being seated. My guess is that someone who has paid for a table is going to be even more pissed if he or she is not seated immediately, regardless of the time of the original reservation. (And is it really that hard for the person taking reservations to simply state that any party arriving more than five minutes late will lose the table, no exceptions?)
Anyway, here’s a compromise:
If I pay for a reservation and arrive late, I’m shit out of luck. But if I’m on time and the table isn’t ready (say, within five minutes), then the restaurant deducts the reservation fee from my bill. I’m sure guests arrive late all the time, but I’d also bet I’m not the only one who’s had a reservation at an expensive restaurant only to be told, “It’ll just be another five minutes” a dozen times before finally being seated.
Update from a reader:
“But if I’m on time and the table isn’t ready (say, within five minutes), then the restaurant deducts the reservation fee from my bill.” There is a corollary to this: If you linger too long after getting your check (say, five minutes), then the restaurant charges you enough extra for it to pay the reservation fee of the people you are keeping waiting.
Another interesting idea from a reader:
In my humble opinion, the best solution is the simplest and fairest one for those restaurants that want to charge for reservations and patrons somewhat wary of doing so. Have the reservation fee be a deposit that’s applied towards the cost of the bill. If the patrons no-show, that deposit is gone.
The Dish 