Restaurants get tough on diners who book and fail to appear

Some restaurants have done away with reservations altogether rather than deal with customers who leave booked tables empty.Award-winning French bistro Vue de Monde charges $150 a person when customers fail to show or cancel with less than 24 hours' notice.The famous Royal Mail Hotel in Dunkeld charges $50 a person for "spoiled produce" for cancellations made within 48 hours while St Kilda restaurant Golden Fields, which takes reservations only for bookings of eight or more, charges a non-refundable deposit.Press Club marketing manager Jo Reilly said customers were contacted to confirm bookings a few days before their reservation date."We don't have a big problem with it happening but sometimes you simply won't hear back from somebody after they make a booking," she said."What we do with group bookings is confirm the number of guests beforehand and if we have less than 48 hours' notice of a cancellation, that is when we would look at charging a fee."We tend to do booking confirmation primarily because we get a lot of bookings a few months in advance and we want them to remember they've made the reservation."Some of Melbourne's hottest restaurants - including Chin Chin and Cumulus - refuse even to take reservations.Woodman Estate on the Mornington Peninsula requires high tea guests to pay when booking and the payment is forfeited if they fail to appear or cancel with less than 48 hours' notice."High tea is a service that takes two days to prepare all the food and we offer it only on Sunday so if someone doesn't show up, we can't save any of the food," owner Stephanie Woodman said.The restaurant also requires full payment for online fine dining reservations.Explore here Restaurants in Bangalore  and  Seafood Restaurants in Bangalore  in India"If it's a Thursday night in the middle of winter and you have two tables of two, you're unlikely to get walk-ins," she said."If neither of them show up, you might have three or four staff working for no reason."Adelaide University gastronomy expert Prof Barbara Santic said people did not realise the costs and preparation involved in fine dining."If you've been to a top restaurant and spend, say, $150 a person, a table of four is $600," she said."If a table of four doesn't show up, that's a big loss." Source “heraldsun.com” .