Restaurant no-shows are really taking the biscuit - time to make them pay

Stock image

Ian O'Doherty Twitter Email

July 11 2020 02:30 AM

After enduring months of enforced isolation as a result of the lockdown, it was no surprise that people wanted to let loose and relax last weekend.

But the sight of so many people drinking in the open air on Dame Lane was a depressing reminder that there will always be selfish people among us, and there's not a lot we can do about it. What those al fresco fools failed to realise is that the easing of the restrictions is conditional upon everyone behaving with a vague degree of common sense.

I've always argued against the Nanny State but when people behave like spoiled brats in direct contravention of the explicit guidelines, they can't complain when the authorities treat them as such.

But amidst the widespread condemnation of the irresponsible revellers, who have placed the opening every pub in the country under threat, there was something even more dispiriting afoot - the return of the restaurant no-show.

Every Christmas I usually end up writing a couple of columns about the selfishness of people who book multiple restaurants and then decide at the last minute which one they will go to.

I really didn't think I'd be writing about it in July, yet we have seen numerous establishments come out and complain that, even on their first night back in business, they were left with empty tables.

There's something truly rotten and callous about messing a restaurant around like that.

But you can make them pay for their bad behaviour.

It's time to bring in credit card deposits and charge people for their no-show.

It might put some manners on them. Then again, maybe not.