Last month, Mara Stern, a New York publicist, decided she wanted to meet a group of friends for dinner at the trendy eatery Lot 61. She called the restaurant repeatedly, only to be told that she would have to talk to the reservations manager -- but nobody was willing to take a message.
Finally Stern got through to the manager, who greeted her with this set of rules: No reservation would be accepted until Stern faxed back a special form with her name, address, two telephone numbers and credit-card number, along with photocopies of her credit card. Even then, the reservation wouldn't be guaranteed unless someone phoned the restaurant to "reconfirm." Finally, if her party didn't cancel more than 24 hours ahead of time and failed to show up, she would be charged $100."It was sort of ridiculous," Stern says. "It's certainly not as easy to eat out as it was a few years ago."
Since when did restaurants become such a cause of indigestion? Diners everywhere are complaining about an expanding array of unfriendly new policies, ranging from demands for credit-card numbers -- or even hefty deposits -- before you even set foot in the door, to strict departure deadlines that force you to gulp down your coffee. Some eateries have boosted their service charges on large parties to 20 percent; others are starting to impose mandatory tips even on small groups. More and more restaurants are using prix fixe menus, rather than letting guests order cheaper individual dishes. And then there's the inevitable diner displeaser: insisting that all members of a party be present before anyone gets to sit down.
"It's just not friendly or homey anymore," says Houston real-estate agent Marie Dierks, a frequent restaurant-goer. Concurs Steven Shaw, a New York lawyer and part-time restaurant critic: "The nickel and diming is definitely getting worse."
The breakdown in civility between restaurants and diners seemed to reach a new low last December, when attorney Richard Fischbein emerged as something of a local hero after a confrontation with the managing partner of a New York restaurant who objected to his refusal of an 18 percent mandatory tip. Fischbein subsequently slapped the restaurant with a lawsuit claiming $7 million in damages.
"It was never my intention to start a movement," says Fischbein, who claims to have received dozens of calls and letters in support of the suit, which has since been settled. "But this seems to have struck a chord."
For their part, restaurants say they have no choice but to adopt the get-tough policies because diners themselves are getting ruder. In an era when attention spans are shorter than an MTV video, customers care more about trendiness than about loyalty. "Consumers feel they have no responsibility," says George Lewis, a sociology professor at the University of the Pacific. In years past, multiple reservations and last-minute cancellations were considered bad form, but now some fickle diners cancel reservations at the drop of a hat -- or just don't show up at all. While dining out was once a special occasion warranting a bottle of champagne and a calorie-laden dessert, now people don't eat much and linger for hours.
Indeed, Lot 61's owner, Amy Sacco, estimates she would lose $2,000 a night on no-shows if not for the fee and faxing requirements. "People have to realize this is a business," she says. "This isn't a charity." Lot 61's strict rules have been so successful that Sacco is even considering applying them to parties as small as four; they currently apply to parties of six or more. (Lot 61 says Stern was required to take the additional step of speaking to a designated manager because her group was even larger -- 15 people.)
While a few restaurants have imposed strict rules about reservations and tips for many years, the trend has become more widespread. For example, the Marx Brothers Cafe, in Anchorage, Alaska, increased its service charge for parties of six or more to 18 percent from 15 percent two years ago, after the owner heard that restaurants in the Midwest and elsewhere had made similar changes. "Our servers would go away on vacation and say that everybody was doing it," says the owner, Jack Amon.
Meanwhile, a new American Express program that allows restaurants to charge for no-shows has drawn "hundreds" of participants, says company spokeswoman Judy Tenzer. Under the program, launched in 1997, restaurants may levy a $25 charge for each member of a group who fails to honor a booking, up to a total of $300. The company says it was responding to restaurants' complaints that no-show rates across the country range as high as 65 percent. Restaurants don't pay American Express to participate in the program, but they must agree to notify offenders by letter when a penalty is imposed.
Jerry Durso, owner of the plush Valentino's in Morristown, N.J., says he decided to crack down on no-shows two years ago, after 40 percent of the people who reserved tables for Valentine's Day didn't materialize. Last year, the restaurant asked callers to leave a credit-card number to hold the table, and warned that they would be charged $25 each if they didn't honor the reservation or cancel a day in advance. Only two small parties failed to show up, Mr. Durso says, and the policy remains in place.
Even if such policies are motivated by bad behavior on the customers' part, they do tend to shatter the illusion of diner as honored guest. As a result, eating out these days can be more like a business negotiation, with skepticism on either side. "There is almost a need for a mutual cease-fire," says Danny Meyer, co-owner of the Union Square Cafe and other top-rated restaurants in New York. "Diners are upset that restaurants aren't honoring reservations, and a lot of restaurants help bring this on by overbooking."
Meanwhile, restaurants are demonstrating no shortage of ingenuity in developing other ways to boost revenue. New York's Fresco by Scotto, for example, adds a $16 "sharing charge" when customers split a $35 steak. A note on the wine list at San Francisco's Greens explains that only those who buy pricey wines can expect to drink from crystal glasses. The Food Business, a trendy cafe in Decatur, Ga., charges $3.95 for a basket of bread during dinner, and the Brooklyn, N.Y., restaurant Rasputin has a mandatory $2 coat-check.
These tactics work -- but a backlash has begun to build. In a poll last year, Zagat Survey LLC asked diners in New York and Los Angeles to list the most obnoxious hidden charges. Among the leading irritants: charges to uncork bottles of wine, charges for bread and mandatory tips to bathroom attendants. Less frequently -- but "far from idiosyncratic," Zagat said -- were charges for refills of coffee, for cake cutting and salad dressing.
Just ask Lisa and Fadi Lakkis, who celebrated their anniversary a year ago at New York's elite Jean-Georges and were startled to learn that their $510 tab included a $60 charge for Evian bottled water. "We've been to a lot of expensive restaurants," Lisa Lakkis says, "but we'd never encountered a water bill like that." The couple claims they never ordered the water and failed to notice what was going into their glasses until it was too late.
Alain Michel, general manager of Jean-Georges, acknowledges that the two-year-old restaurant initially "had some little problems" arising from its water charges. He says the restaurant subsequently changed its policy, and now requires waiters "to discreetly draw customers' attention to the fact that the water isn't free."
Charges for water also infuriated Linda Valadez of Atlanta, who dined a year ago with her husband and another couple at the posh local eatery, Seeger's. "They charged us for Vittel, which I later learned was the bottled water," Linda Valadez says. "We walked out feeling we'd been royally screwed." Though the Seeger's menu lists a $3-per-person charge for Vittel, the print is tiny, and Linda Valadez says she doesn't remember seeing it. When asked about the incident, Claude Guillaume, general manager of the restaurant, said, "If they don't care for Vittel, they can choose tap water, but who wants to drink Atlanta water?"
Some of the changes are the brainchildren of an emerging army of restaurant consultants, whose numbers have swelled by 25 percent in the past five years, according to one estimate. One consultant, Tom Feltenstein of Palm Beach, Fla., urges his clients to put a bottle of wine or water on the table along with their empty water glasses. "Having the server say, 'Would you care for a bottle?' -- that's an awesome opportunity," he says. A softer-sell tactic involves what Feltenstein calls "menu engineering," or changing the way food categories are positioned on the menu. "You want the appetizer category -- the most profitable -- at the top left," he explains, "and you position the item you take the most money to the bank on in the No. 1 spot."
Some restaurants say they have had to implement surcharges and strict reservations policies because of the harsh realities of their industry. Arlene Spiegel, food and beverage practice leader at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, estimates that more than 50 percent of restaurants fail in their first year of operation -- and that rate was as high as 90 percent during the recession of the early 1990s.
With customers resisting price increases on entrees -- the average price of a meal at 35 well-known New York eateries rose just 2.6 percent annually since 1981, according to Zagat's -- restaurants have to make up the difference in other ways. Meanwhile, the tight labor market has made it difficult to attract and keep waiters, creating pressure to adopt mandatory tips and other staff perks. And then there's the No. 1 restaurateur peeve: no-shows.