Oh, how are we not surprised?<\/p>\n
The booking service OpenTable thinks Fort Lauderdale has a bad reputation for flaking on restaurant reservations, ranking it among the 10 worst U.S. cities for restaurant no-shows.<\/p>\n
Broward County\u2019s largest city joins four other Florida spots on the list \u2014 Miami, Miami Beach, Jacksonville and Orlando \u2014 with the highest proportion of missed reservations, according to data in OpenTable\u2019s recently released Restaurant Impact Report<\/a>. The study spans online reservations made between July 1, 2025, and June 30, 2026.<\/p>\n By contrast, Florida\u2019s Gulf Coast apparently has top-tier booking etiquette, with Naples and Sarasota ranking among the lowest proportion of no-shows in the country.<\/p>\n The report didn\u2019t reveal each city\u2019s numbered ranking, so it\u2019s unclear whether Fort Lauderdale wins the top crown for diners ghosting their reservations. Nor does it identify whether the customers who bailed are tourists or locals, so we can\u2019t blame this behavior on snowbirds.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what the study does share: Restaurants are \u201cmost vulnerable\u201d to no-shows on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Diners skip the 10 p.m. timeslot most often, and the week of Valentine\u2019s Day saw the highest no-show rate of the year, according to OpenTable\u2019s data.<\/p>\n Restaurant owners surveyed argue that no-shows indirectly harm eateries, and that every no-show table for two costs $80 on average. Along with that revenue loss, 56% of operators say a no-show means turning away other bookings, while 51% cite staff costs and 49% report wasted food or stock, the study found.<\/p>\n A majority of diners, for their part, seem to get the message. About 67% of polled customers \u201cagree that a no-show has a real impact on a restaurant\u2019s business,\u201d the report says. Meanwhile, 28% admit to missing reservations without canceling at least once in the past year, while 47% agree that knowing the financial burden of a no-show would make them more likely to honor or properly cancel a reservation.<\/p>\n One caveat here: These stats are compiled<\/a> from interviews with 1,501 U.S. diners and 355 restaurant workers and aren\u2019t South Florida-specific.<\/p>\n Our take? Read this study with a shaker of salt because the report doesn\u2019t entirely address the nuances of consumer behavior. Third-party services like Resy and OpenTable, which compete to host top eateries on their platforms, have an incentive to share data around restaurant pain points like no-shows. OpenTable\u2019s website<\/a> says it uses artificial intelligence tools to track diner habits that it shares with restaurant point-of-sale systems, from drinking preferences to how often they\u2019ve nixed reservations.<\/p>\n To deter no-shows, restaurants that use third-party platforms like OpenTable can charge booking or cancellation fees. A 2025 peer-reviewed study<\/a> by the UK-based International Journal of Consumer Studies found that adding cancellation policies or fees creates social pressure to show up and is crucial to reducing no-shows.<\/p>\n Some Fort Lauderdale restaurants have such penalties in place. The Katherine, Timon and Marissa Balloo\u2019s neighborhood sit-down, charges a $25-a-person no-show fee<\/a> to anyone who cancels after noon on the day of their reservation. Calusso, the coastal Italian spot within Pier Sixty-Six, charges a $50-a-person fee<\/a> for cancellations within 24 hours of the booking time.<\/p>\n Sun Sentinel senior features writer Phillip Valys can be reached at pvalys@sunsentinel.com<\/a> or Twitter\/X @philvalys<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oh, how are we not surprised? 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