Pants Rant: Reservations

“Hello, thank you for calling X, how can I help you?”

“Yes, hi, I wanted to see about making a reservation for tomorrow evening, for two people at 7:30”.

“Well, we don’t have 7:30, we only have 7:20 or 7:40 available”.

“Really?  There is no way you can put us in for 7:30?”

“No, its our system, we can’t do that, Im sorry”.

“Um, wow, okay…can you put us in 7:20 and make a note that we might be ten minutes late?”

“Well, we only hold our tables for 15 minutes, so please be aware of that”.

Really? Are you serious?  Making a dinner reservation in Manhattan has gotten a little ridiculous on a few fronts.  Of the  above all too common conversations, the one most likely encountered is the first, when you are told that you can’t have your exact reservation time, only a time slot 10 or 15 minutes in either direction.  Fucking figure it out people!! Just lie to me even, I don’t care. If you for the life of you, you are constricted by some Nazi-like reservation system that has ridiculous time slots, just lie to me.  Put me down for the 7:40 time slot, pretend you gave me the 7:30, and save us both some aggravation.  The odds of me having to wait those 10 extra minutes for the 7:40 are slim to none, and we both know it. Ahh, the 7:40 dinner slot, for when 7:30 is just too early and 7:45 is too late.  Seriously?!!!

The second kind of reservation hell that has been gaining popularity is the  gimmick, the newest way to keep places elite and covetable.  Some of these plots are so elaborate I wonder if the institutions that employ them even want people at their restaurant.  I suppose the answer to that is that they want people at their restaurant, but the RIGHT people. Please email this fictitious person at this time x days before your reservation to try to secure a time slot.  Please log on to this website and complete this algorithm designed by NASA to try to reserve a Fried Chicken Lunch.  And the worst part of this all is that we do it, we do it all. New Yorkers are so obsessed with food, and even more with the unobtainable, that there are very few hoops that we won’t jump through to get the reservation that we want. I could go on about this for days, but it is 9:59 am 30 days before I want to eat at Babbo and the reservation lines open in exactly 60 seconds…

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  1. I hear you screeming, sister!
    My family had a restaurant that I grew up working in since I was 7ish, peeling shrimp!
    I see these same issues and they drive me crazy!! I love that you get to rant about them!!
    Good Job! Customer Service is almost extinct, and that’s really sad!
    ACCOUNTABILITY!!!