Remember that old Seinfeld clip where he shows up at the car rental counter and discovers they know how to take a reservation, but have no idea how to hold a reservation. Watch it–it will bring back memories and explain so much!

The same scenario can be replayed numerous times in restaurants. We have a personal old memory jogger when we showed up as a foursome at a neighborhood Mexican restaurant and tried to move to the front of the long line as we said, excuse us, we have a reservation for 8 PM. The response from most people in the long line was, “we have 8 o’clocks, too.” Turns out the owner was so excited to take a reservation; he didn’t know how to say “come another night, please.”

Yes, I grant you this is before the Open Table universe that makes restaurant reservations so easy, but what happens when you have a large party or want a small private room? Online reservation reservations seldom work for those situations. You need to contact the restaurant directly.

What happens when you make a reservation, receive an email confirmation, call the day before to confirm, but do not hear back from them, then do a day of event phone call confirmation with a half-hour time adjustment, and show up at the restaurant with your large party only to find out you are stuck in a comedic episode (Seinfeld) but do not find any part of this funny?

Your private room has been given to another group. You are stuck with two tables of 8 in the dining room. No private room. No private family celebration.

You are stuck at a vacation destination (Branson, MO) on a busy summer Saturday night (at the Candlestick Inn) without  much recourse. You have chosen a restaurant that gets plenty of online praise; they just flunked the exercise on your special night. There is little you can do–you have nowhere to go. Remember it’s Saturday night, there are 16 of you. You can get huffy, too, or just figure out how to make it work. You are there; they have you.

It is not about taking reservations. It is about fulfilling expectations and honoring what you accept.

Leaving guests stranded with no options never leaves anyone happy.

Irritating 16 people is not what we call good press.