Wine bar owners tell of impact of ‘no shows’
BEHAVIOUR DAMAGES FAMILY-RUN BUSINESS
A FAMILYRUN business has spoken out after experiencing a high number of ‘no shows.’
Cookfella’s Wine Bar and Eatery, which is on Westgate in Guisborough, has been located in the former Black Swan pub since May 2021, when Wayne and Helen Leonard moved the restaurant from its former home on Church Street.
The venue has an impressive fivestar rating on TripAdvisor, based on 746 reviews.
However, they have now spoken out against the rising number of ‘no shows’ the business is experiencing, describing one night in particular when “20 covers” did not turn up for their booking, nor let the owners know. They said this occurs now “on a daily basis” and it is “damaging our family-run local business.”
In a Facebook post, Wayne and Helen said: “So, in our nearly 10 years of trading as Cookfella’s, Helen and I have never written a negative post, but... We are experiencing an extremely high number of ‘no shows!
“Tonight alone we have had two large tables (over 20 covers) not turn up for their booking nor have they had the common decency to contact us to let us know so we could resell the tables. This is all before 7pm!
“Saturday evenings are our bread and butter and are in such huge demand that we often fill up the prime times weeks in advance. Our industry is on its knees with the economy/energy price increases/ commodity price increases/living wage increases (totally understand that one), staff shortages and many other challenges.
“We have invested heavily in an easy-to-use reservation system. It is also so easy to cancel a booking.
Simply by responding ‘cancel’ on your confirmation email. If you are one of these guilty persons, please have the common decency to call and let us/any restaurant know to enable them to potentially resell the table. For information, our new fancy system logs those numbers/ emails/names that do not show and allows us to block them from booking again. Apologies for this message but it is happening on a daily basis now and is damaging our family-run local business.”