More No-Shows in Restaurant Bookings After Circuit Breaker Are Hurting Restaurants Even More

By
Boon Hun
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No-shows at restaurants in Singapore has been a major issue even before Covid-19.

Previously in 2018, a restaurant owner claimed that he had lost 1/3 of his revenue for a night because of reservations that were not honoured.

Now imagine what no-shows would do to a restaurant amidst a Covid-19 pandemic, at a restaurant which suddenly had its seating area effectively cut into half?

Even cats know you don’t pull such sh*t off during a pandemic. / Image: Wikipedia

Yet that is exactly what’s going on in Singapore now, according to CNALifestyle.

Restaurant owners that they spoke to said that the number of no-shows and cancellations has actually increased in the post-Circuit Breaker period.

Are People Leaving Their Sense Of Decency At Home?

Restaurant Ibid said that about two weeks ago, a “combination of no-shows and last-minute cancellations” caused the restaurant to lose 40% of its diners.

By the way, 40% for the restaurant is 8 people, seeing as Covid-19 has left them with enough seats for 20 people.

Restaurant and wine bar RVLT has 55 seats after safe distancing measures. They complained that before Circuit Breaker, no-shows was once a month.

Now? It’s been happening every week, sometimes up to as many as three per day.

Cocktail bar Operation Dagger said they are having an average of 30% no-show rate.

Depriving Others Of The Chance To Dine

No-show doesn’t just affect restaurants and eateries because they didn’t manage to get your money.

They also drive customers away because the table was reserved for you and your group.

That really happened to a colleague of mine on a weekend evening. He couldn’t find a place to dine because every restaurant, despite it being empty, was “booked”, and eventually gave up on having his first meal in a restaurant after Circuit Breaker.

So imagine you have an appointment at 8pm, and customers like my colleague were coming up to “try their luck” and they walk away disappointed because it’s 7.30pm and you’re expected to come in.

Then, at 8.15pm, after trying and failing for the fifteenth time to get in touch with you, they look out of the door, hoping to get walk-in customers but they’re already eating at other places.

Yeah, that’s what is happening at the restaurant every time you see their number and put it back into your bag, telling your friends, it’s okay, they’ll give up.

Are you really hooman? / Image: mom.com

Some Restaurants Resort To Drastic Measures

Some restaurants are tired of enduring no-shows and one of them is RVLT.

Because their customers place reservations with them via Chope, they implemented a requirement for a credit card authorisation of S$50 which will be paid out to the restaurant if the guest did not turn up or cancel within 30 minutes of the reservation.

Since then, RVLT has not had a no-show or last-minute cancellation issue.

Other restaurants, like Restaurant Ibid, didn’t take this step as it adds to the trouble and might chase people away.

The head bartender of cocktail bar Operation Dagger, Thomas Giraud, says it’s a trust system and it’s up to the business to “pre-emptively” build interactions with the reservation-maker.

“You’re coming in to do one of the most intimate things a human being can do, which is to eat. When wild animals feed, they are in one of their more vulnerable states. So there’s this level of trust you need to have with the restaurant because we’re feeding you.

“We need to build that sort of trust.”

In other words, don’t do a “no-show” please.

When you place a reservation with a restaurant, you expect them to keep your seats for you.

So how can you break their expectations of you, which is to turn up, enjoy their food and have fun?

Food for thought, indeed.

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Boon Hun
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