"These services ... Mainly, though, ... are solving an old economic problem. They allow restaurants to better mitigate the risk that they will lose money on a diner who promises to show up and cancels. (Throughout the industry, no-shows make up 5 to 10 percent of all reservations.) If a customer fails to show up, says Al Roth, a professor of economics at Stanford University, the opportunity to monetize that slot is gone forever.
Nick Kokonas, a former derivatives trader who is an owner of the exclusive Chicago restaurants Next and Alinea, has found perhaps the most clever way to solve this problem. Kokonas has developed a system that requires diners to pay for a ticket to reserve their spot, with that money deducted from their final bill. While he has employed a version of the system for his expensive tasting menus, he expects tickets at more casual restaurants to take the form “of a deposit ticket of $5 to $10, fully applied to the bill.” According to Kokonas, restaurants using pilot versions of his system have seen no-show rates drop to less than 2 percent."
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