You learn about a cool new restaurant in the city and head there on Friday night. You get there around eight, and hear from the hostess that there is an hour and a half wait for a table. Looking distraught, she informs you that you can pay to swap spots with people ahead of you in line. The cost is about $20 per person per half hour. Being pretty hungry, you decide to move ahead an hour and plan on skipping the dessert. Around $15 per person per half hour go to the people you displace in line. The money will be used to reduce their dinner tab.
Everyone in this situation wins. The person who skips in line gets what they want: a dinner in less time. The person who is moved back gets a discount on their check for waiting a little longer. And lastly, the restaurant (and Line Hopper) gets a nice 25% transaction fee.
There are a few ways to get this to work. The simplest is to ask people when they arrive if they are willing to get bumped and if so, at what price. If they aren't willing to get bumped, do they want to pay to get ahead?
It would also make sense to make an app, which allows people to see what the wait time is in real-time and see how much it would cost to get in quicker.
um... so, I get cut in front of if I agree to get cut in front of? Or even if I don't want to? Also (having never worked in a restaurant) doesn't the wait time have a lot to do with how long a table takes to complete their service? I know A LOT of the timing is up to the restaurant (time it takes wait staff to take drink and food orders, time the kitchen takes to turn the tickets around, etc., but some of it is up to the diners, if they are indecisive or choose to linger over their half drunk sodas for an hour there is not a lot to be done... though maybe that is the exception not the rule. I guess I just figured that wait time is not an exact science. Plus if restaurants made all that (how many parties of 2 are in front of me and how many 2 top tables are available or whatever) public then we would all know when the let high profile people hop the line (which is pretty common in my part of the world).
ReplyDeleteHaving said all of that this long wait times are an issue in the sticks as well--in Fenton, MI (town of 12,000) every weekend night the 3 sit down restaurants (ok, maybe it was 4) boasted hour plus waits, I am sure the teens would gladly take comped desserts and the affluent adults might pay the $$.