AI Is Quickly Driving Restaurant Managers Bonkers, On Multiple Fronts

Can a regular person with human fingers still manage to snag a hard-to-get reservation anymore? Are influencers and the content-obsessed going to ruin restaurants for all of us by angling for perfect tables and obsessively counting macros? Will an already pandemic-tainted and rude restaurant-going public just use ChatGPT to write seven-paragraph complaint emails ad infinitum until a restaurant relents and gives them something for free? These are all questions facing the modern-day urban restaurant, as AI begins to ruin one of the last remaining, totally analog and human experiences we can all share. As Grub Street reports this week , AI-using restaurant-goers in New York are already acting unreasonable — and acting just generally strange all over the place — using chatbots and AI agents for everything from selecting a table based on its lighting, to writing lengthy diatribes about being made to wait for a table. There are also novel ways being employed, via chatbot, to make special requests and lodge complaints with a view toward getting refunds or special treatment. "What we’ve also noticed is AI emails trying to pick at our empathy. ‘I need to switch this six-top because someone is dying’ — that type of thing," says Ashwin Deshmukh, co-owner of the Manhattan bistro Jean's. Deshmukh also notes that Claude and ChatGPT are being used very frequently to select wines from the wine list, and "The only way to circumvent it is if you have a somm they want to flirt with." One anonymous restaurant group executive tells Grub Street that the trend of the over-long, over-demanding complaint email is very real. "They all sound the same," the executive says. "‘I’d like to file a formal complaint,’ then a seven-paragraph email about how they had to wait for a table. ‘I would like the following: an explanation for why this happened, a plan for how it can be prevented from happening again, and information about what type of compensation you can offer me.' I mean, we’re talking about dinner.” Then there is the longstanding scourge of bots swooping in to grab all the available reservations at a popular spot before any real people can — although now many more people have access to AI agents who can monitor websites 24/7 and grab any table that becomes available. I personally tried to jump on OpenTable at 12 noon on Monday to get a table at Julius' Castle here in SF, right as reservations were first released — only to encounter errors every time I tried to grab a timeslot and the site telling me "that table is no longer available." Within about 90 seconds, every reservation for a month was gone, and I find it hard to believe that this was all the work of humans clicking and typing. Customers complained of a similar OpenTable phenomenon last week, on social media, after famed NY pizzaiolo Anthony Mangieri announced a one-night pizza pop-up at A16. "Really bummed! I had a table for 2 in checkout, but within two seconds, everything was gone," one commenter wrote. "Did any real person actually get a slot?" asked another. From restaurateurs' perspective, this often results in losses for them by way of over-booking. Amanda Signorelli, co-owner of New York's Golden Steer, tells Grub Street that "AI bookings have the highest likelihood of cancellation and are most prone to errors," as in the five-top that gets booked for a party of two. And then when restaurants try to charge cancellation fees, those can be met with multi-page emails, written as if by a lawyer, questioning their legality and demanding they be refunded. Nation's Restaurant News reported this week that broadly, across the country, about 40% of restaurant operators are adopting AI with a cautious approach, most of those employing AI for things like personal outreach and marketing, analyzing customer feedback, and sorting through resumes. AI is also starting to creep into use at fast-food drive-thrus, with Taco Bell being an early adopter . Are San Francisco restaurateurs and managers encountering similar challenges from customers' rampant use of AI? Please share your stories at [email protected] .