“Yikes,” she wrote, tagging the Peninsula, a hotel in Paris, where Williams and her family had come for the Olympics. “I’ve been denied access to rooftop to eat in a empty restaurant of nicer places but never with my kids. Always a first.”
The establishment replied with a note of regret. “Please accept our deepest apologies for the disappointment you encountered tonight,” it wrote in response to her post. “Unfortunately, our rooftop bar was indeed fully booked and the only unoccupied tables you saw belonged to our gourmet restaurant, L’Oiseau Blanc, which was fully reserved.”
Some people criticized Williams, who didn’t have a reservation, for acting like an entitled celebrity, while others assumed that racism was behind the incident. Whatever actually went down, the high-profile episode seemed like a good opportunity to examine the increasingly fraught dance that often accompanies reservations and landing a table these days.
We spoke to several experts about why diners might encounter a restaurant that doesn’t look full, but still might not be able to accommodate them — and how to increase your chances of getting a table you want.
Make a reservation
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Gone are the days when you could casually stroll into a busy restaurant and expect to find a table without booking one ahead of time. Experts say restaurants are increasingly leaning on such apps as OpenTable, Tock and Resy to make sure their seats stay full. That’s especially true at upscale restaurants, notes David Hopkins, president of hospitality consultancy the Fifteen Group.
Another trend he’s seen is more places opting to require diners to use a credit card to reserve a table and charging a deposit for no-shows or late cancellations. “Tech is helping restaurants do more of that,” he says. “And the busier ones in particular are taking advantage of it.”
Understand the system
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The biggest reason you might see empty tables but still be told there’s no room for you is because the diners simply haven’t arrived yet.
Dylan Falkenburg, a veteran of restaurant operations — he worked for years managing properties for José Andrés Restaurants and is now director of operations for FAM Hospitality Group — described a recent experience he had in Austin, where he now lives. He was checking out the dining scene near the site of where he’s helping to open a restaurant and encountered a spot that appeared to be only half-full. When he asked to be seated, though, he was told it would be an hour’s wait. “I’m in the business, so I know what that means — you’re about to get rocked,” he says, describing what happens when a bunch of diners show up at once. “But if you’re not in the business, it can be extremely frustrating to see that and be told to wait.”
Higher-end restaurants often expect diners to linger longer, starting with cocktails and ending with desserts and after-dinner drinks, Hopkins notes, and so they are likely to have fewer “turns,” or number of times they will reseat a table. That can result in empty seats that are nevertheless spoken for. You’re more likely to be seated at casual places, which often devote a smaller percentage of tables to reservation-only diners, with the idea that they can turn tables multiple times in a night with walk-in guests.
Promise to be quick
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Experts say you still might be able to snag a seat at a booked-up eatery, if you promise not to linger. Hopkins advises asking cheerfully if they might accommodate you for a quick bite or drink, which might allow the restaurant to serve you and reset before the reservation holders are due to arrive. “My wife and I often do this,” he says. “We just ask if they could squeeze us in.” (And then, it goes without saying, it’s only right to honor your promise and vacate when you said you would.)
Of course, being a VIP can help — but not always. Some restaurants always hold tables back for VIPs or those with credit card concierge programs. But smaller places might not have that kind of capacity, or those seats might have already been filled. (And if you’re in that elite class of celebrities, be prepared to go full “do you know who I am” — some reports say the Parisian restaurant’s staff simply didn’t recognize Williams.)
Remember: Paris is different
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In Paris, many restaurants don’t book tables for more than one seating per evening, meaning tables are likely to sit empty but still be claimed, says Meg Zimbeck, the founder of Paris by Mouth, a food and wine tour service. If they do turn their tables, she says, they usually offer far longer seatings than American spots. And many of the city’s best restaurants are small. “All of that really compresses the number of seats that are available. So you might walk into a restaurant, especially if it’s earlier than most people eat here, and see lots of tables that might be reserved for later.”
The French, Zimbeck notes, consider a 7 p.m. dinner an early-bird special. To get the dining experiences you want, she recommends snagging reservations online, being sure to note how far in advance a desired restaurant opens its tables for booking. And if your plans change or you want to eat earlier than Parisian restaurants open for service, she says, casual brasseries with “service continu” (all-day menus) are your best bet for reservation-free meals.
Be sympathetic to staffing shortages
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Another reason diners might see empty spaces in a dining room where they are told there’s no room? Staffing shortages, Hopkins says. This was more common shortly after the pandemic shutdowns, when restaurants were severely understaffed, but it might still occasionally be the case. Sometimes, a restaurant might close off a section or simply seat fewer diners, knowing that the available staff wouldn’t be able to handle full capacity.
“There’s no point seating a table just because they have space if they’re just going to disappoint you,” he says. “I’d rather turn someone away politely to start with than have them walk away after a bad experience.”
Don’t blame the host
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Falkenburg likened a restaurant managing its seating process to a game of Tetris, with staff trying to handle multiple moving parts and arrange them into some kind of order. On any given night, there might be multiple no-shows. Some tables might linger forever, while others might stay for only half the time the restaurant allotted. There might be tons of walk-in customers — or few. The difficulty is compounded, he notes, because the staff handling it are often the youngest and least experienced.
“Just be nice to the people at the host stand. I’ve seen an 18-year-old in braces, and people in their 30s and 40s are cursing at them,” he says. “They might not know how to juggle everything and try to make people happy.”
And if you really feel the need to lose your temper, he suggests looking higher up on the food chain for a target: “Find a manager and yell at them,” he says. “That’s what they’re there for.”
