I'm generally for this, but I often eat out solo or with one friend, often at the spur of the moment, and that style is perfect for a no reservations system. If you are going out to eat with a big group for a special occasion, I can see where this would be a problem.

One good thing about New York is that there are so many restaurants, that if your destination restaurant is too crowded, you can usually walk down the block and find another one of similar price and quality.

But if a restaurant takes no reservations, it should switch and take reservations on Mother's Day, Father's Day, Valentine's Day, and Easter. The extra money they make on those four days of the year more than cover the cost of doing reservations on those days.

If your restaurant is popular and you can cram your tables night in and night out without a reservation, why would you bother risking someone NOT showing up for their allotted time? Id love to make a reservation every place i go, but from a business stand point, it only makes sense.

It really depends on the restaurant and exactly what's going on at the time. On a nice night with friends in the east village, we might be willing to wait for some Momofuku noodle bar goodness. But most of the time, no - my husband only has a certain amount of free time before he has to go back to working and we're not going to waste that time waiting in a long-ass line and maybe not even get in. The restaurant's gotta be really, really, really, really good to be worth going to if they don't take reservations.

What's the worst in my mind is places that do take reservations and then make you wait ages for your table while you stare at the empty tables everywhere around the restaurant. I'm looking at you, Del Posto.

"So by having no reservations, that restaurant saves $125,000 a year."

And is that $125,000 in savings passed on to customers in terms of cheaper food? Yea I think we all know the answer to that.

What about getting there super early to avoid the crowds, early-bird style?

And re: the earlier OpenTable comment, people who use OpenTable accumulate points, which add up to gift certificates. Another nice feature is that you can see other times wen there are tables Of course, the downside is that I think only a limited of reservations are available through OpenTable—I've called a few restaurants whose reservations were full on OpenTable but had a table thanks to a live person checking it out. I use it as another resource.

Forget it. Restaurants that dont take reservations (and not, lets say, Grimaldis) make it too much of a pain in the ass to eat there. If I have other plans, Im going to travel to a place that I may or may not have a chance to eat at? No way.

And if I dont have plans, Im not going somewhere so I can sit for an extra hour at the bar until a table opens up. Plenty of fantastic places that know I will be there when I say I will- because I made a reservation ahead of time.

This isn't a new trend. If a restaurant doesn't take reservations, it means they do well. It is a nice equalizer. You just have to plan accordingly if you want the good stuff. For example, put your name on the list at Joes Shanghai, go across the street and get a 40 minute massage. Table ready! Win.

That's funny, that's exactly what I do at the one in Flushing: walk in, get ticket, go across the street to the Hong Kong Supermarket and go shopping.

So not exactly what you do.

Why do they bother with open table if it's that expensive? I always call the restaurant directly, so I know for sure the reservation is made and accepted. Any place with class recognizes repeat customers --so why would I want a "digital" middleman?

As for places that don't take reservations -- other than pizza/burger joints, this is just plain lazy. Again, a place with a little class would give a free drink to waiting customers, not sieze the moment to increase sales!

open table operates 24 hours - i'm guessing they email/fax the reservation request over as soon as it's made.

if a place opens for dinner at 5pm and you want a table for the same night, you can make a res at 10am.

crazy technology! rabble rabble

I'm guessing Open Table may help slightly with exposure, but if you're already a well known restaurant, there's no good reason you couldn't set up your own simple online reservations system and run it for a couple hundred dollars a year.

infreatingly new trequalizer?

I've found it frustrating when restaurants don't take reservations on holidays. This Mother's Day, I had to call about 10 restaurants before I found one that took reservations and had one available. Very frustrating when you have kids with you - they're ticking time bombs.

If it's just dinner out with friends, at least we can wait at the bar, but I know plenty of people who won't go to places that don't take reservations.

This isn't rocket science. What does it matter if they take reservations or not, as long as every table is occupied by diners?

If a restaurant doesn't take reservations, but is usually crowded, I will visit during off-peak hours, or I won't visit.

Is this even worth debating?

Go to many of the chain restaurants (TGI Fridays, Oliver Garden, Applebees etc) around the area on a Friday or Saturday night and the wait list usually is 30+ minutes. Even with a wait that long many people so do it. Go in a diner and the wait list is usually under 5 minutes or nothing at all.

The food has to be pretty damn good for me to wait.

Peter Lugers: Yes.

Shake Shack, Local Pizzerias: No.

Totally agree about Shake Shack. I love it, but I would never ever wait in that line.

But FYI, Shake Shack has a webcam on their site (and a downloadable dashboard widget for Macs), so you can see in real-time what the line looks like.