Restos can soon charge $10 for no-shows
Quebec is to allow restaurants to charge $10 for no‑shows*. Although ten bucks will hardly offset the loss of an entire table during the dinner rush, it’s at least an acknowledgement of the problem.
*Note to OQLF, is “no-show” also partiellement légitimé if TVA uses it?
Joey 11:56 on 2025-07-03 Permalink
$10 *per person* – probably enough at least to stop people form making multiple reservations and not cancelling the ones they choose to forego…
Kate 12:12 on 2025-07-03 Permalink
$10 each is admittedly better. If someone has to pay $60 to no‑show on a table for six, they might think twice, although for some people this wouldn’t be much of a deterrent.
Blork 12:20 on 2025-07-03 Permalink
But it gets complicated if you do it per person. For example, what if you book a table for six and only five show up? Do you penalize them $10?
It would work OK I guess if it were set up so the entire “fine” were void as long as SOMEONE showed up. There would be the odd case of a table for 4 being booked and only one or two show, but that would be rare I think. The main thing would be to penalize for complete no-shows.
Blork 12:23 on 2025-07-03 Permalink
Also: even if it were capped at $10 it would still help a bit. Not a complete solution, but people are cheap AF and it would cut down on the people who make reservations willy-nilly, such as one person I know who frequently makes reservations at three or four places and THEN opens the discussion of “where should we go to eat on Friday?” (And AFAIK he doesn’t cancel the ones that they don’t go to.)
roberto 13:01 on 2025-07-03 Permalink
If I ran a restaurant, I`d maintain a list of no-shows.
I`m curious to see how this will be implemented. Is it a reservation fee paid at the time of reservation, with the fee refunded on your invoice? Are you providing CC info at reservation to be charged only if you don`t show up? Will they just be stuck to try and find you to collect if you don`t show?
Kate 13:17 on 2025-07-03 Permalink
Blork, your acquaintance is a jerk and I’m surprised you want to associate with a jerk like that.
roberto, it would be meaningless unless they got credit card details at reservation time.
Blork 13:45 on 2025-07-03 Permalink
Kate, I said it’s a person I know, not a person I associate with.
EmilyG 11:27 on 2025-07-04 Permalink
I’ve heard of a lot of people doing that (reserving at several restaurants and then choosing one.) When I heard about that, I was astonished and horrified that anyone would have the audacity to do such a thing.
Ian 22:45 on 2025-07-04 Permalink
If anything this calcualtedly self-serving behaviour is one of the real indications of the collapse of social norms, not graffit or protest.
CE 00:04 on 2025-07-05 Permalink
I think a lot of it is that the internet has broken social bonds that, in the past, would have made much of this behaviour more difficult. Before the online platforms, you would have had to go through the trouble of calling a restaurant to make a reservation then talk to an actual person and enter into a sort of contract between two living humans. Now you just open an app, put in a bit of information and submit. That lack of human connection is gone so it doesn’t feel like you’re screwing over an actual person. Also, it’s just so easy to do so you can make multiple reservations in the time it previously would have taken to make just one. I recently heard that authors are losing money on people buying books from Amazon and after reading them, sending them back for a refund. Before Amazon, you would buy a book from a bookstore and if you wanted to return it after reading it, you’d have to explain yourself to the person working at the bookstore. A very different interaction. I’m sure there are many other examples like this.
There was an interview on CBC Daybreak recently about a restaurant getting rid of their online reservation system and making customers call and talk to someone or leave a message and no-shows dropped dramatically.