Restaurant reservations and economics, tacos, melons

Good Food

KCRW

Society & Culture

4.5 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 9 August 2024

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Reporter Adam Iscoe exposes the auctioneers and private clubs making a profit on restaurant reservations. Behind most kitchen doors, restaurants are hemorrhaging money. Heather Sperling documented every dollar her restaurant spent over the course of a month. Stephanie Breijo spent months talking to chefs and restaurateurs about operating in crisis mode. Daniel Hernandez and the Food section team at the LA Times canvassed the city to find its best tacos. Aaron Lindell from Quarter Sheets uses summer melons from Weiser Family Farms in playful ways.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From KCRW, I'm Evan Kliman and you're listening to good food.
0:05.2	Think back to the last time you were in New York.
0:08.5	If you tried and failed to snag a prime seat at one of the city's most coveted restaurants, well you're in really good company.
0:16.5	Desirable restaurants have always been hard to come by, but a third party auctioning off a twoetop on a Friday night for over a thousand dollars?
0:26.0	Nothing could have prepared me for the dystopian picture that Adam Isko paints in his latest piece for the New Yorker.
0:34.4	He joins us now to explain why it's even harder than ever to get a restaurant reservation.
0:40.4	Hi Adam.
0:41.6	Hey Evan, how are you?
0:43.0	I'm good and just so properly outraged by your article.
0:47.8	So let's roll play for a second.
0:49.4	Let's say I'm an average New Yorker and my birthday is coming up and I want to celebrate it at a popular
0:54.8	restaurant. I log onto Rezi or open table two weeks before my birthday. I'm on the app at 10 a.m. right when they release the reservations,
1:06.1	what are my chances of getting a table?
1:08.6	This is a great question. You know, I think it all depends on where you want to eat. So like, you know, to be very clear, there are tons of perfectly good tables at perfectly good restaurants all over New York City where it's not at all hard to get a reservation.
1:23.6	I mean, there's an astounding amount of restaurants here, 25,000 or so.
1:27.8	But to get a reservation at the sort of popular spot that you mentioned, I would say it's not looking good out there. What you see
1:35.1	on resi is not really or on open table is not really a reflection of reality.
1:40.1	For example you you sat with the reservationist at Rocholi, and by 10.06 AM, the dining room was fully committed.
1:52.3	That's right, that's right was fully committed. That's right.
1:53.0	That's right.
1:54.0	Fully committed.
1:55.0	And I think that's because people are excited to eat there.
	...

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