The List Keeper put down her list and glared. I stood my ground. She did not blink.
We had arrived at this tension innocently enough. I called her restaurant to reserve a table. I was told the restaurant doesn’t accept reservations for parties of fewer than six. But once I was in the restaurant, she explained, she would be happy to put my name on the list she keeps and call me when a table was ready. Ah, I thought, another one of those. The New York Times recently said this was becoming more common among hot, smallish restaurants –
a trend
, actually! A democratizing trend, born of another trend (casual quality dining), though one that could lead (the story failed to point out) to a third trend so ominous I shudder at the possibility: the List Keeper gaining more power. Do we want to leave that much control in the hands of the List Keeper, a species already so power mad and purse-lipped it’s said that the Cheesecake Factory only hires former executioners as List Keepers?
Isn’t the point of eliminating reservation policies at least partly a way of also eliminating the snotty, exclusive aura associated with reservation books?
Wouldn’t we just be replacing (gag) reservationists with List Keepers?
Anyway, the List Keeper on the phone told me to come in and leave a name. I said, great. As my dining companion trawled for parking, I ran into the restaurant to leave a name. The foyer was body to body, so stuffed I could not see the podium. I pushed through the crush, elbow thrust forward. I glimpsed the lectern. Then, at last, behind it, the List Keeper. Two, I said. “Moment,” she said. Just “moment.” I gummed my mouth into a quasi apologetic smile and averted my eyes. She moved hers along the list before her, rose on her toes to look past me, sighed and made a mark on her paper. Then she looked at me. Two, she said, would be a wait of — she scanned the room, peeked over her shoulder, down again at the list – 95 minutes.
Ninety-five?
I nodded and began to slump away. Wait, she said, we can do two right now — if you’re ready. Yes, I said. Your party is here, she said. ((She wasn’t asking.) In a second, I said, pointing to a car trying to parallel park across the street. I felt the weight of the crowd against me. The List Keeper rose on her toes to see above their heads, out the window. She did not look convinced. We don’t seat incomplete parties, she said. But we’re complete, I said.
Sorry, the List Keeper said.
OK, I said, a table for one then.
With that, the List Keeper put down her list and glared a moment. I smiled. I felt like that Greek guy in the sandals who outwitted the Sphinx. She said nothing, grabbed a menu, led me to my table and walked off without a word. A second later, my companion arrived —
shall we make it a table for two?
Still, it was a hollow victory.
There are reasons restaurants take reservations and reasons restaurants don’t accept reservations. When his company conducts surveys on the topic, said Scott Jampol, senior director of consumer marketing for the online reservation service OpenTable, “diners overwhelming tell us” the ability to make reservations are important to them. Indeed, when I spoke to Davina Baum, managing editor of Chow.com, she said she prefers “the security of a reservation to waiting past an hour, until I’m no longer hungry.” Then again, talk to high-end restaurants that don’t take reservations and managers say the cost of Open Table — which can charge a restaurant thousands of dollars a month — and reservationist salaries are reasons for a no-reservation policy.
On the other hand, one Midwest chef told me he would not wait an hour for a table at his own place — he simply does not like to wait for tables that long.
Read the advice that List Keepers have for diners trying to get a table:
There are strong arguments for accepting reservations (a good restaurant values hospitality first, etc.) and for not taking reservations (it’s more inclusive). But since money tends to rule, particularly if you like new, hot restaurants — or even a ubiquitous chain like Olive Garden, where waits get no less impressive — it wouldn’t be a bad thing to better understand that self-important person with the clipboard behind the lectern:
List Keeper: Jen Fields (Toro, in Boston). Advice: “Embrace the fact that there is a wait, and a bar, and have fun as opposed to taking it personally. … Never come when you’re starving. … The list may be three pages, but a lot of names are not going to wait the whole time.”
Worst excuse heard for why a diner needs a table now: “Back injury. Diabetes. Low blood sugar. Impressive stuff.”
List Keeper: Kyle Leveque (Ceili Cottage, Toronto). Advice: Ceili has 60 seats and Leveque doesn’t keep an actual list. “I do it by looking at you, knowing when you came in. … The worst idea is to think we don’t want you to sit. Really, we don’t want to be fined for over-capacity.”
Worst excuse: “That you know the owners. A lot of people like that one.”
List Keeper: Jordan Smelt (Holemon and Finch Public House, Atlanta). Advice: It has 32 seats. “With such a small space, it’s hard guaranteeing a time. … I have worked at restaurants with reservations. It’s the same everywhere: They quote you a 6 p.m. or a 10 p.m. table because they’re holding their 7:30s and 8s in their back pocket. That’s a good reason not to have reservations. … I know where you are on the list. I know how long you’ve been there. No matter how bad you want to be seated, it makes me more stressed to know you are not seated.”
Worst excuse: “‘It’s been an hour!’ Actually I write down the time people come in. Their heads run faster when hungry. It’s really been 8 minutes.”
List Keeper: Colin Camac (Fatty Crab, New York City). Advice: “No. 1, don’t ignore the person with the list. No. 2, it’s hard to predict accurate wait times.” (Generally, List Keepers prefer quoting a longer than a shorter wait time; a 20-minute padding is common.)
Worst excuse: “‘The other person in my party is parking the car.’ Yeah, well, in this neighborho
