(This is enough different from Restaurant Memberships that I thought it was worth its own item.)

If you have favorite restaurants, you might find it worthwhile to pay a small fee to ensure that you can always get reservations at busy/popular times.
-- lee, Mar 17 2001

This isn't quite feasible; you could only sell as many memberships as you had seats, and they'd have to eat there a LOT to recoup. Better to have a "members' section" that increases your chances of (but doesn't guarantee) getting seated.
-- bookworm, Mar 17 2001


Also guaranteed reservations for busy times would mean empty seats at busy times. I recommed the restaurant issues trump cards, so people can choose what level they want to pay for knowing that as they can "trump" people with lower memberships they too can be "trumped" by higher status cards. This way you have a small pool of reserved tables and a method to allocate them.
-- Aristotle, Mar 17 2001


I think Aristotle's idea is a little better, a seperate members section would mean that most of the time, it's standing empty. This is no good for restaurants either...

Problem is, what if someone with a higher card comes in after someone else is already seated? Or does that go just when the reservation is being placed?
-- StarChaser, Mar 17 2001


Shifting people who are already seated out is a good way to make sure nobody comes back. If the members' section is usually empty, that means you should either make it smaller or lower the price.
-- bookworm, Mar 17 2001


Maybe tables should just be auctioned off. That way, people who really want them can express the urgency of their need, no matter whether it's because they're in town for only one day, want to eat something before the show, or just because they're used to it.
Who kows, you might even pay for your meal by "getting bumped" and waiting half an hour longer.
-- jutta, Mar 17 2001


An actual aution could be good. The trump card system I proposed, after all, is a defered auction and designed to be simple to implement at the the point where people haggle for an empty table. However people might not be too interested in a system that requires prior purchases and prefer an immediate auction. This might allow people to demonstrate how weathly they are, or how wealthy they wish to appear to be, which could be a bonus in some circles.
-- Aristotle, Mar 19 2001


Somewhat baked (three-quarters-baked, then?) American Express boasts "Every day a reservation is held exclusively for Platinum Card members"; tables at select restaurants reserved for AMEXCO members until 10 a.m. day of feast. If no one's reserved those blocked-off tables by then, they're throw back in the pot.
-- Grog, Sep 17 2002



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