I don't know much about running a restaurant, but I do know that restaurateurs fret about patrons who don't show up after making reservations.
But how can restaurants discourage such no-shows? Some put reservations on credit cards and charge for cancellations, others even resorted to public shaming on Twitter, but chefs Ludo Lefebvre, Jon Shook, and Vinny Dotolo of Trois Mec in Los Angeles is taking another route: selling dinner tickets.
The 26-seat Trois Mec, which opens Thursday in an unmarked former pizza joint in a Melrose Avenue strip mall, will be the first restaurant in Los Angeles to sell nonrefundable tickets online — nearly $100 with tax and tip (not including wine) — and is among only a handful of others in the world doing the same.
"We considered everything — no reservations, putting a deposit on a credit card," says Krissy Lefebvre, Ludo's wife and partner. "But people pay for tickets for entertainment. This just happens to be entertainment in the form of dinner."
Betty Hallock of Los Angeles Times has the story: Link