If paying up front for meals at restaurants is a trend that will catch on is yet to be seen.
New York City's Per Se, and a similar restaurant in Napa Valley, will move from normal reservations to a pre-ticketing system starting 2015, The Consumerist reported on Tuesday.
Tock, the system, has been tried out in Chicago, where restauranteur Nick Kokonas invented the software. Those who want to eat at places like Alinea and Next in the windy city reserve tables and pay their bills in full weeks or even months before they want to attend. The tickets are nonrefundable, services charges are included, and only liquor will be charged at the end of the meal, the New York Times reported.
If the Tock system is taken on widely, it will be more flexible, like allowing to sell only areas of a dining room, deciding whether to include tops and charging a fee that's as low as possible.
Tock hopes to charge a flat fee of $695 per month to use the software as much as they want. The clients must buy its touchscreen, a $199 charge every month, and pay between $1 to $1.25 for each customer booked.
Thomas Keller, who owns Per Se and its Napa Valley equivalent, French Laundry, invests in the software. Other restaurants in Chicago will be rolling out Tock in the next ten days.
Wylie Dufresne, who owns WD-50 in New York City's Lower East Side, used Tock in the last few months before it closed about a week ago. After the system went online, $250,000 in reservations were sold in just in two hours.
According to data collected by Kokonas, Tock takes away the need to maintain reservation staff and almost completely takes away no-shows, an epidemic problem in the country. He said that on any night of the week, 10 percent of restaurant reservations are not claimed.
But the pre-paying doesn't seem to be dissuading some diners.
"To go to Per Se or the French Laundry, of course I'll pay in advance," said Lauren Silverman, a publicist in the fashion industry who says she eats out five or six nights a week. "I know I'm going to spend that money anyway."
