CANCEL CULTURE

When it comes to last-minute cancellations, the Covid excuse has become as ubiquitous as the old classic of a family bereavement. Four merchants tell Claire Harries about their experiences.

Illustration by Fiona Blair

Deposits, refunds and booking systems

Kent Barker, who runs Wilding in Oxford and Salisbury, and Eight Stony Street in Frome, Somerset, says: “We didn’t take bookings pre-Covid. We put them in place at vast cost, because booking systems are expensive. But actually we never looked back, because it made life a lot simpler and more efficient.

“We don’t take deposits unless it’s tables of eight or more, and we request a deposit of £10 per person. We did that pre-Covid for bigger groups. But if they phone up, as most people do, and say ‘we can’t come anymore because someone’s got Covid’, we do a refund. We can’t not.

“In the Christmas week of omicron we had 1,100 covers booked in Oxford alone and in 24 hours we lost 800 of those. They’d all paid a £10 deposit and we had to refund every single one. It was horrendous. It took ages just to do the refunding.”

Paul Morgan, owner of Fourth & Church in Hove, East Sussex, has also invested in a booking system. He explains: “Our reservation system can be set up to

Counting the cost of the no-shows

automatically deduct that money [£20 or £30 per head] once we have selected a no-show or cancellation option, but I don’t set it up that way. I want to discuss the situation with the customer who booked before anything is done and then we make an informed decision.

“I very rarely end up taking the deposit, because it always, always throws up another chapter of issues to deal with. People can get very hostile with you publically and they never quite give the whole story – they call you out as being unreasonable or mean. It might be via social media or just word of mouth.”

Fitz Spencer, owner of Honky Tonk Wine Library in Plymouth, says: “We’ve always had a booking policy. It used to be through the week but now it’s Fridays and Saturdays where we ask for a deposit of £15 a head.

“If they cancel and don’t give us 24 hours’ notice then they lose that deposit. When they make a booking online our policy is explained. Most people read it, but you get some that don’t.

“We ask for five days’ notice if it’s a corporate booking, and after that the deposit is non-refundable. We did have a corporate event booked before Christmas last year and they cancelled so they lost their £1,000 deposit, but they did come and re-book in January-February time.”

Ann Hayes at Ann et Vin in Newarkon-Trent, Nottinghamshire, doesn’t take deposits for tables in her courtyard, but over the summer she’s found that there are plenty of people waiting to fill any spaces left by flakier customers.

She says: “We have teamed up with the fine dining restaurant next door. On Fridays and Saturdays they do the food and we do the drink, which is brilliant. We have had people ringing up about half an hour before to cancel. There’s not a lot we can do about that, to be honest, but we do try to make it obvious that we’re not impressed.

“It’s only a tiny amount who do that – I’d say about 5%.”

Hayes is less forgiving when it comes to ticketed events. “My big portfolio tasting sold out in about three weeks,” she explains, “and for events I always make them pay up front for a ticket. If they cancel too close to the day, we don’t give them their money back and they tend to take it on the chin.

“Usually, if people give enough notice, then I can re-sell their ticket, in which case I’d refund them.”

Morgan at Fourth & Church says: “We do what we call a Sunday Session once a month, which is a wine tasting at lunchtime and we do that for between 24 and 32 people, depending on the event.

“It’s a ticketed event and we charge between £80 and £120, which is normally for around six wines with paired courses. We are very clear that there are no refunds. If for some reason they can’t make it then we are quite happy to roll that over as a credit to the shop or a credit to dinner or to another event of their choosing, but we don’t give money back.”

“We make it very clear there are no refunds. We’re quite happy to roll it over as a credit to another event”

Excuses, excuses …

The general public can be fickle and unreliable, so cancellations and no-shows have always been inevitable. It’s definitely nothing new.

Kent Barker takes the view that while it is an issue, “it’s not a growing issue, it’s fairly stable”.

He says: “In general people are very good and we are very busy so we can normally fill a table with a walk-in. But I’d much prefer it didn’t happen.”

“It’s been a strange few months,” adds Fitz Spencer. “You can normally understand and see the pattern throughout the year, but not so much this year.

“It’s not just us, it’s the same throughout the town. When we came out of Covid it was like a greyhound coming out the traps: everybody wanted to get out and now it doesn’t help when the government screams doom and gloom out there. The small

micro-businesses are thriving, but we need the public to be confident and keep coming out and doing what they want to do.

“People are still blaming some form of Covid when they cancel. If someone has the virus and they’re in a group, I can understand that they may not want to be together.”

“People do use Covid a lot,” agrees Paul Morgan, “and they still use family bereavement quite a bit, or ‘my husband has lost his wallet and we’re all looking for it’ – that’s a great one.

“Saying that, a lot of people are as good as gold. I’m not going to judge someone on what they are telling me is a lie or not, you just have to navigate the least problematic way. There are ways of meeting in the middle.

“When we came out of the pandemic and everyone was loving restaurants and had really been really missing them, they were vocal about how reasonable it was to take a deposit. Now it’s gone back to ‘everything is shit about restaurants’.

“It’s all very boring to have those sorts of conversations with people but I try to explain that if you booked a theatre ticket or an airline ticket, or a hotel room, it’s the same thing.

“I also try to say, in a calm way, that if they had turned up for their table and I had not got it for them – if I’d given it to someone else because I thought they were going to spend more money – I would be in breach of that contract.” Above left: Kent Barker of Eight Stony Street Above right: Fitz Spencer of Honky Tonk Wine Library Middle left: Paul Morgan of Fourth & Church Below left: Anne Hayes of Anne et Vin