What’s easier than trying to book online discount coach seats for a family of eight to Las Vegas the day before Thanksgiving?
Getting a reservation for two at a New York City steakhouse for lunch on a Thursday afternoon in early November.
Truly. Scoring restaurant tables in the Big Apple was never as much of a nightmare as it is today. Three-month “wait lists,” broken websites and demands for upfront payments are only a few of the horrors that owners like to torture their customers with. It’s enough to make you wish for the days of calling up a host on your rotary phone.
When I tried to to book lunch yesterday at Keens Steakhouse on West 36th Street, I quit after their Resy booking page repeatedly said, “An error occurred while scheduling your booking.”
Keens uses Resy, which is especially prone to breakdowns and mistakes, I have found. It once turned my booking for two at 7 p.m. at Hav & Mar into seven people at 5 p.m. Their explanation: Oops!
Going out to eat is supposed to be fun. It’s supposed to relieve us of cooking chores and afford a relaxing time with friends, family and occasionally total strangers with whom we bond over $29 hot dogs and $36 cocktails.
But, now the theoretically festive occasions come with a first course of dehumanizing annoyances. That’s why I won’t miss Momofuku Ko, which closed last week after 15 years. In its early years, when it was breathlessly hyped, it accelerated the nascent torture trends that peaked after the pandemic ended. I blame its notorious practice of forcing wannabe diners to put phones on speed-dial to try to snatch seats when they went online at 10 a.m. for egging on owners to find ways to drive us batty.
The hassles aren’t only at small, trendy places like Semma in the West Village, which the New York Times recently devoted two whole pages to illustrate the exotic strategies — from using Resy’s “Notify” link to enlisting AmEx’s Concierge service — that customers have to employ to get a table. Restaurants of all sizes and styles are a hassle.
The engine of torment at Jose Andres Bazaar is the relatively new Seven Rooms reservations platform, which not only takes your credit card info but wants to know your birthday. Will they next ask for the date of your first sexual experience?
Fine dining restaurants are the worst. Per Se, which uses the diabolical Tock reservations system, requires an unbelievable $200 deposit per person.
At Eleven Madison Park, the prepaid reservation via Resy — a mere $794.79 for the tasting dinner for two — “is non-refundable,” the sites warns. “You will not receive a refund if you change or cancel.”
Really? What if someone must go for open-heart surgery between now and, say, one night next month?
Maybe you shouldn’t plan so far ahead. Although it’s often said that EMP is “sold out” months in advance, we found dining-room tables available at 8 p.m. this week and next.
Reservation sites for tons of eateries claim not to have tables available when it stretches credulity to believe they don’t.
Earlier today, Bad Roman’s Open Table page said, “There are no tables available from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m.” Really? None at 5:30, an hour in demand by no one, in a 300-seat restaurant?
In fact Bad Roman had oodles of empty tables of all sizes between 5:30 and 6 Thursday night when I walked past.
Another common occurrence is restaurants only having 5:30 p.m. slots open and nothing else — a common tactic to try and offload undesirable times early on that punishes those that plan ahead (or don’t have VIP status). Closer to the day of, you’ll suddenly find openings to eat the civilized hour of 7 or 8 p.m.
Some places like to ambush you with “reminders” at the worst possible times. Friends booked at Bar Centrale, the ersatz speakeasy inside a West 46th Street brownstone, for a meal and drink after seeing “Gutenberg” nearby. The place buzzed their phone — which they fortunately turned off — in the middle of the performance. They came out to find they had to confirm their reservation — which they’d already confirmed the morning earlier — or lose it. They arrived to find the house half-empty.
Say this for the online fiascos: They at least spare us the sometimes worse indignity of dealing with ditzes who answer the phone — that is, when they have a phone. Many new places have neither phones nor e-mail addresses
It all makes airline reservations seem easy — and sometimes the food at 30,000 feet isn’t so bad.