‘It’s a big thing in Cambridge, it’s frustrating’

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Restaurants in Cambridge are losing hundreds of pounds a week from customers simply not showing up. Managers and owners in the city say no shows are a huge problem for them, sometimes meaning they lose £800 a week.

Jay Miah, who owns Mina Pan Asian, said no shows are the biggest thing they’re dealing with at the moment. The other day they had a table of 17 people and only six turned up.

Jay said: “It’s a big thing in Cambridge, it’s frustrating. We lose about 20 to 30 covers a week, maybe more… in terms of money value you’re looking at £400 to £500 a week. Our restaurant is not a huge restaurant so it’s a big thing for us.

“I had a customer three days ago, they put on the booking ‘table for two’ and a note ‘please make it extra special for my girlfriend’. We went out of our way to buy some flowers and make the table really nice and they just didn’t turn up”

The team is using upfront deposits to counter the issue, but it has also brought its own problems. She said: “I use a company called OpenTable now, and they take card details for customers… if you don’t turn up we charge you £10 per person.

“But when you charge those customers they end up leaving bad reviews or creating a big fuss, they say ‘well I didn’t show up so you shouldn’t be charging me’. This is the biggest thing I’m dealing with at the moment, the amount of refunds I’ve given in the last two months is ridiculous because I can’t afford a negative review”.

Aamir Malik, manager at riverside restaurant Galleria in Bridge Street, defended taking deposits and said they are sometimes losing up to £800 a week. He said: “It’s fairly normal to take a deposit, it’s like booking in a hotel, in today’s day and age it’s very acceptable and common. We are in a tough climate, the overheads are going up, the utility bills are going up, food costs are rising, so it does have an impact.

“In a week we could be losing between £500 to £800 pounds… you’re looking at two and a half, three thousand pounds a month which is staff wages cost, that’s the staff that needs to be paid.”

He said: “Chains they have their name, they have their branding, people know what to expect. They have purchasing power which reduces their buying costs, they get better discounts, they get better deals. We won’t go through X amount of produce, so we have to negotiate with the suppliers harder.”

Ese Lounge in St Benedicts Court, Huntingdon has only been open just under a year and is already facing problems with no shows. Manager Felix Otomewo said: “If you’re bringing somebody in for the night and then a big group has cancelled then you may have to cancel that person’s shift. Instead of doing maybe a 10 hour shift, they might end up doing only 1 hour”

“In doing so it also hurts the community, it’s not just the business. That person will not be taking home at the end of the week what they are meant to take home because the business was not able to secure that booking or there was a no show”

The business implemented deposits after seeing a spike in no-shows in their first summer. They found that a benefit of implementing a charge was that people were asking for deliveries more.

Felix added: “If we are not taking a deposit of £10 they would probably have just asked to cancel and would not have asked for the food to be delivered to them. We do delivery ourselves, but not every business has got the facilities to deliver food”

Anthony Rawlence, manager at The North Star in Trumpington Street, said they are now looking out for people who are regular no showers to make decisions around it. He said: “No shows are just part of the industry. It’s all about managing it and understanding what you’ve gotta do to minimise that amount.

“This day and age it’s not unheard of for people to book two or three restaurants and then on the night they decide which is the best to go. If you’re not going to charge someone for not showing up, people don’t care, but if you charge somebody people start to second guess it.”

The North Star sends out reminders to all of its customers, which isn’t always reliable. Anthony added: “Any table larger than five we will always call to ensure that they’ve confirmed.

For smaller tables “you get an email or text message asking you to confirm” but only about 25 to 30 per cent of people do so. Anthony said: “You’re busy doing this or that or you’re with the kids or in a business meeting and you think ‘I will confirm’ but you forget. There’s always human reasons for why people don’t come, but it never hurts to pick up the phone”.

Anthony noted that regular no-shows are logged. He said: “We have a booking system that gives us information as to how often they’ve been, what they like, where they want to sit. We’ll know if we’ve got a table that regularly no shows.

“If Jonny and Suzanne have no showed 3 times and they turn up 10 minutes late I know to release the table. But I’ll always find a way to get them a table if they do turn up.”

Courtesy of What’s On Archive | Everyone Theatres