Valentine’s Day was shaping up to be a solid night for Peanut Park Trattoria, the 3-year-old Italian restaurant in Little Italy.

The holiday fell on a Friday, meaning most of the 134 parties who made reservations on OpenTable did so a month in advance. Just one customer called to cancel a few days before, citing an ill son. A handful backed out when OpenTable’s text reminder went out the day before.

Even so, owner Dave Bonomi felt good. The team trimmed down Peanut Park’s menu and priced it a little higher, this being a premium night. They’d set themselves up for what would likely be a packed house.

Then came Valentine’s Day. Bonomi knew something was off when another nine bookings were scratched in the hours leading up to dinner service. Between 6 and 8 p.m., 27 more parties either canceled online or noshowed, six of which had confirmed their spots the day before. A snowy squall kicked up around 7:30 p.m., effectively killing any chance of walk-ins.

“At one point between 7 and 8, we had zero customers seated at the bar,” Bonomi said. “That doesn’t even happen on a sleepy Tuesday night.”

All told, 52 of Peanut Park’s Valentine’s Day reservations either canceled or flaked, roughly a $3,000 loss of business for this independently owned trattoria.

“People just don’t respect reservations,” says Bonomi. “I think they assume the restaurant will fill those seats without issue, but some just don’t have the foot traffic.”

To cancel dinner plans is human — and seemingly trendier than ever since COVID. People are staying home more than they used to, which Bonomi said is contributing to a breakdown in etiquette.

“As manners become less important to people, this irreverence toward businesses has gotten and will get worse,” he said.

Lacey Irby, owner of French-Canadian restaurant Dear Margaret in Lake View, agrees that COVID-era isolation made people “feel more entitled to whatever they want,” which could be contributing to a lack of decorum.

Diners’ carelessness takes many guises, from serial canceling to showing up super late or early without notice to booking multiple restaurants simultaneously. For restaurants, last-minute cancellations and no-shows, whether malicious or not, can spark a cascade of frustration, harried dining room readjustments and financial pain. This lost revenue and squandered labor and ingredient budgets are more acute now due to thinning margins as labor and ingredient costs climb.

In turn, customers’ bad behavior may increasingly catch up to them in the form of dreaded fees, like reservation deposits and
cancellation penalties. And some restaurants are blocking repeat no-shows.

‘Treat it like a spa appointment’

It’s more common — expected, even — to cough up a sizable deposit or prepay for the entire meal at high-end tasting menu restaurants, where dinner is more experience than sustenance and can run upward of three hours.

When owner Tim Lacey took over the finedining Lincoln Square restaurant Elizabeth from Lane Regan and opened Atelier, he inherited Elizabeth’s prepaid reservation system on Tock. Atelier now uses Resy but still requires customers to prepay for their $200 tasting menu and 22% service charge up front. (It will issue refunds for emergency cancellations.)

Though Lacey has debated charging less up front to broaden Atelier’s customer base, he said the model suits a restaurant that serves only 44 diners on a weekend night, where a table of four’s cancellation means a loss of more than $1,000.

“Prepaying always made sense to me,” Lacey said. “We’re tiny; we only seat 22 people at eight tables, so even one no-show can have a significant impact on our finances.”

Basque-inspired steakhouse Asador Bastian in River North requires a $45-a-person deposit to book a standard table and $150 for the tasting menu. If customers cancel within 24 hours or don’t show, the restaurant keeps the deposit.

“Restaurants have to staff accordingly, especially with new labor laws,” said Hsing Chen, founder and head of creative, brand and communication at Eat Well Hospitality, which operates Asador Bastian, along with Andros Taverna and Mano a Mano. “And you budget for staff and for bringing in product based on how many reservations you have.”

Minimum wage increases in Illinois have put pressure on restaurateurs to be meticulous with staff counts. Thus, Chen said people should think of dinner reservations more like booking a spa or doctor’s appointment.

“If you don’t show, they’re going to charge you, because you took up a time slot,” she said. “I don’t think people think of restaurants that way, because they don’t have the knowledge of what goes into it. But if you think about it, it’s pretty logical.”

How late is too late to cancel?

Whether you have a sick kid, temperamental transport or just don’t feel like going out, the timing of your cancellation matters. The later a customer backs out, the tougher it gets for the restaurant to rebook those seats, especially after service starts.

“We always say 48 hours’ notice is best for cancellations; anything more is even better,” said David Barriball, vice president of hospitality and guest services at One Off Hospitality, which owns such juggernauts as Avec, Publican and The Violet Hour. The ripple effect worsens exponentially with large parties, which may include multiple conjoined tables.

“Three tables could be three other bookings,” Barriball said, which is why One Off takes a $10-a-head deposit on bookings for six or more.

These days, reservation flakes rarely catch One Off restaurants off guard, because the group can hedge against them. For instance, One Off anticipates cancellations on high-stakes holidays like Valentine’s Day weekend. Relying on OpenTable data showing the last few years of cancellations, One Off restaurants will intentionally overbook by the same average percentage.

They’re holding off on reservation surcharges. “We haven’t gone that path, but it’s on the horizon,” Bariball said.

The owners at the 36-seat Dear Margaret talked extensively with staff and customers before deciding against booking and cancellation fees. Not only do surcharges feel less hospitable, but “guests feel like they’re getting tricked and take it out on the front of the house” when it’s time to tip, Irby said.

The restaurant, which books reservations through Tock, gives customers several chances to cancel in the 48-hour window that gives Dear Margaret the best chance of rebooking those seats. An email reminder goes out two days in advance, then a text reminder 24 hours before, which is when the restaurant sees the most changeover, Irby said. (Opportunists would do well to call or check online for openings starting around that time, she adds.) Irby keeps manual track of frequent no-shows and also flags serial cancelers on Tock.

“If you do it too much, I am going to prevent you from booking here again,” she said.

Dear Margaret leans heavily on Tock’s Notify function, which allows people to get on a waitlist based on their desired time slot, then prompts them to book a table when a cancellation occurs.

Because Dear Margaret does take walkins, particularly when it’s nice out, Irby can usually fill seats even when people cancel after service starts. Regardless, she routinely finds herself wondering aloud to executive chef Ryan Brousseau if they should resort to cancellation fees, too.

“You’re coming into our home,” she said. “You’re our friends, we’re excited for you to be here, and we’ve done everything in our power to make sure you show up. So if guests don’t meet us where we are, it’s hard to not take it personally. You’d never ghost your friends at the last minute.”