[HN Gopher] Fine dining restaurants researching guests to make t...
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Fine dining restaurants researching guests to make their dinner
unforgettable
Author : borski
Score : 37 points
Date : 2025-07-13 15:30 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.sfgate.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.sfgate.com)
| pseingatl wrote:
| Just like China's social credit system.
| bigyabai wrote:
| Well sure, but for private enterprise.
| ethan_smith wrote:
| There's a fundamental difference - restaurants checking if you
| like wine on Instagram to enhance service is optional and
| consequence-free, while China's system is mandatory with
| significant legal and financial penalties.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Surely once this becomes the norm and more business do it, it
| will only ever be used for good.. right.. ?
| bluescrn wrote:
| Until they start denying people service because they
| expressed support for the wrong political party or took the
| wrong side on a divisive social issue.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| Their social credit system doesn't actually exist in the way
| most people think it does, it was a top down mandate that each
| province was expected to implement in their own way, often
| without coordination.
|
| https://youtu.be/Kqov6F00KMc
| borski wrote:
| Except nothing like it? This article isn't about filtering
| guests out, but about creating additional tailored experiences
| to those who do attend.
| alganet wrote:
| It is expected that filtering based on digital content will
| become a thing for a while. It's one of those obvious, but
| misguided, uses of recent technologies.
|
| I don't know about restaurants, but in regards to other kinds of
| silos, it is likely that those filters will go down once quality
| data availability becomes a problem.
|
| In the restaurant analogy, you can say that if the salloon is
| empty, they'll let people in because they can't survive without
| them.
| allears wrote:
| I would never eat at a restaurant that would let people like me
| in.
|
| (Thanks, Groucho)
| prasadjoglekar wrote:
| The title seems ominous but the article itself is about how a
| fancy restaurant will go out of it's way to make you feel
| special. They're perusing your social media for clues.
|
| In the past your spouse or kid would call and let the maitre'd
| know it was special; now I guess it's a job for someone on staff.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Until some YC backed SaaS LLM AI automates the process and it
| becomes table stakes. Then they find other uses for it..
| hungmung wrote:
| I'm waiting for fully automated writing style recognition
| that finds all your throwaway accounts and sends you a
| shakedown letter.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| _Reproducing Hacker News writing style fingerprinting_ , by
| antirez of Redis fame
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43705632
| steveBK123 wrote:
| It's really great that the most successful people in
| Silicon Valley disregard the social implications of their
| work. Arguably that's what makes them so successful.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| This was possible before, as the post shows with a
| previous HN post, nothing to do with Silicon Valley.
| theideaofcoffee wrote:
| 'Silicon Valley' here is just proxy for 'self-delusional
| tech glitterati with a cheap veneer of enlightenment'.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| I suspect HN is already checking IP.
| closewith wrote:
| Unlawful in the EU, thankfully. The US seriously needs to
| revaluate it's data protection laws.
| brookst wrote:
| Are we really doing the slippery slope dangers of a high end
| restaurant going out of their way to delight?
| atmavatar wrote:
| If they're already vetting your social media, they can also
| start refusing service based upon religious or political
| leanings displayed in your posts. No slope (slippery or
| otherwise) is required.
|
| Imagine making reservations for a family dinner but being
| turned away at the door because the restaurant found a post
| (in support/critical) of Trump or one of his policies. The
| restaurant would be completely within its rights to do so,
| even if it seems a stupid and pointless business decision
| to cut clientele in half.
| tptacek wrote:
| So, yes, is your answer to the preceding question.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| > and it becomes table stakes.
|
| I see what you did there.
| jjmarr wrote:
| Reminds me of The Menu.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| Reminds me of The Bear which has scenes like this. It is
| quite common in higher end restaurant, like those at the
| Michelin level to customize the experience for each guest (at
| least to a small degree, not necessarily changing out the
| entire menu for them).
| pbh101 wrote:
| Which itself draws from the book 'Unreasonable Hospitality'
| and iirc the Chicago restaurant 'Ever' featured in the show
| applies this approach.
| brookst wrote:
| And the Four Seasons has been recognized for this for
| many years; it was a case study in business school for
| me.
| tptacek wrote:
| (The "Ever" in "The Bear" is a composite of many
| restaurants).
| mingus88 wrote:
| The Bear is literally the lead-in paragraph for the article
| satvikpendem wrote:
| Yes, that is why I mentioned it.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| Going to The French Laundry has many similar to The Menu and
| felt like it was what the movie was satirizing
| satvikpendem wrote:
| The Menu is specifically satirizing the show Chef's Table
| [0]. Notice the same sort of music and compositon of the
| plates as well as the font.
|
| [0] https://youtu.be/BkN9dDGTgtw
| yieldcrv wrote:
| Thanks, I was curious
| fnord77 wrote:
| author doesn't understand the definition of "vetting"
|
| which is par for the course for sfgate/chronicle
| dang wrote:
| Thanks! We've changed the title above to use a more
| representative phrase from the article.
| mousethatroared wrote:
| Still creepy.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Good luck with that.
|
| Pretty much the only social media I participate in, is ...
| _here_. I guess the Bay Area might take HN seriously, but I live
| in NY.
| Spivak wrote:
| The example in the article is about getting to know your
| patrons so no social presence would be fine, but for what
| you're talking about with actual filtering no social presence
| would be an immediate rejection so I wouldn't be so smug.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Not smug. I just don't do social media. I know _many_ folks,
| with _lots_ of money, that are similar to me.
|
| If SMBs want to reject us, because we aren't posting every
| meal on TikTok, then they only have themselves to blame.
| vntok wrote:
| What does being rich have anything to do with this?
|
| You seem to think SMB rejecting you is only a problem for
| them, have you considered that them rejecting you also
| means that _you_ don 't get service from them?
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Hey listen.
|
| Sorry if what I wrote, offended. Didn't mean to.
|
| So we're done.
| shiftpgdn wrote:
| That's ok, you'll get the same treatment everyone else got
| before they started this trend. "Normies" with their lives on
| the standard socials will get extra attention or special
| treatment at no detriment to you.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Social Credit Score, but privatized
| kube-system wrote:
| Of which, the name comes from the US concept of "credit score"
| which was always privatized.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| Americans only care that the organization that can kill and
| arrest isn't controlling all facets of life
|
| But are tolerant that corporations do the exact same things in
| their society
| EA-3167 wrote:
| Like many here, before I read the article I assumed this was
| intended to be some sort of filtering mechanism... which is a bit
| dystopian, but IMO the truth is much MUCH more bizarre.
|
| We're talking about a fancy restaurant that researches you and
| your social media to better cater to you and make you feel
| "special". I think I'd prefer that this just be an extension of
| the velvet rope, bouncers have been around for ages, but this
| feels genuinely creepy.
|
| > "The information is used as a precursor to gain more of an
| understanding of who our guests are," general manager Akeel Shah
| explained to SFGATE. "We may not even use the information, but it
| gives us a better way to tailor the experience and make it
| memorable."
|
| Eewwww, no. Just no. It really feels like someone watched 'The
| Menu', missed the entire point of the movie, and just thought
| "Hey wouldn't it be neat if WE knew everything about our
| customers before they arrived?"
| volleygman180 wrote:
| I haven't seen The Menu, but try watching The Bear instead.
| They demonstrate this level-of-service & mentality and it's
| much more sincere than you think.
| EA-3167 wrote:
| The Menu is... overly sincere, I won't spoil it, but it's the
| "Restaurant as cult environment" movie. In fact the question
| of lacking sincerity is framed as "the audience casually
| disregards the immense effort and dedication requires to
| achieve what you demand."
|
| ...Now that's probably using restaurants as a metaphor for
| the film industry, but either way the point holds. I'm not
| put off by insincerity, it's forced, false intimacy as a
| product or a service goal that bothers me. Good food, good
| (not fawning) service is more than enough for me, I don't
| need this kind of race-to-the-bottom Michelin stars seem to
| inspire.
| dceddia wrote:
| These comments are such a great pointer to the way outrage is
| engineered.
| fsflover wrote:
| Can you elaborate?
| vicurve wrote:
| You know how you sometimes read a title or a topic and you
| can infer the kind of commentary a particular topic will
| have? Even going so far as to expect words like
| "enshittification" to be used for both stating a point as
| well as for in-group signaling? Sort of like how opinions are
| front-loaded even if the article was read? (And very often
| the opinions are things we've heard before from many other
| people, this is a given).
|
| Well, we've entered a period in manufactured outrage on the
| internet where an audience is primed ahead of time with
| talking points and perspectives that are deemed allowed, and
| then these reflexes are triggered over and over by the same
| kind of articles. And it's the frenzy that counts.
|
| It used to be confined to FB and other places but the average
| commenter has changed and so the average commentary has
| changed.
|
| Articles are increasingly becoming rage bait, moreso than
| clickbait. I do not know what the appeal is yet but I imagine
| it's some mixture of impulsivity that online commenting has
| enabled, combined with commenters thinking their take is
| valid/important/whatever. Maybe narcissistic but I can't say
| for sure. At any rate, it's another good way to destroy a
| community - especially one with self reinforcing mechanism
| like voting that basically ensures you're on rails (with
| apologies to dhh)
| dceddia wrote:
| The title implies (well, I'd say explicitly states with the
| word "vetting") that restaurants are trying to filter guests,
| maybe to avoid troublesome ones with uncouth posts online or
| something. And many of the comments are replying to that
| interpretation, based on the unfairness suggested in the
| title. It's not only clickbait, it's outrage bait, designed
| to spark anger.
|
| The article itself is about how restaurants have gone above
| and beyond for some guests where they've been able to tell
| from their social media that they're celebrating a special
| occasion or some other thing like that. To make the guests'
| experience _better_ and _memorable_.
|
| There's a privacy angle to this, should restaurants do that,
| slippery slope, etc etc... but many of the comments aren't
| talking about that. They're responding to the inflammatory
| title.
|
| I don't think we often get such a clear picture into the
| _why_ behind online outrage and how clearly manufactured it
| can often be. I think it 's easy to believe people are angry
| for a good reason, to take the anger "on good faith" in some
| sense. In this case, with the title being _so_ far from the
| article, it 's clear to see what's going on. And makes one
| wonder about the rest of the outrage out there.
| borski wrote:
| I couldn't agree more. Half the reason I posted it was the
| aggressive title; I was curious to see what would happen,
| and it was precisely what I expected heh.
|
| The other half of the reason was that I really did think it
| was an interesting article. But having to keep the title
| the same was a fascinating social experiment.
| dceddia wrote:
| Thanks for running the experiment :)
| renewiltord wrote:
| Haha this is fantastic. I suppose we must have been uninteresting
| guests to these places because we didn't get this degree of
| personalization but the food was great. A lot of these 3 Mich
| experiences are experiences and not just a dining alone thing so
| I totally get it. Fun stuff!
| joenot443 wrote:
| Honestly, this just seems like really creative and earnest
| hospitality. To summarize the somewhat fluffy piece -
|
| > Kirk also has a gigantic database of each guest -- about
| 115,000 people -- and knows how many times they've dined at Lazy
| Bear since it first opened as a supper club in 2009. She then
| dives into social media and finds extra information that is
| publicly available to get a sense of who the guests are before
| they come in. Finally, she puts all the data she's gathered into
| a color-coded Google document that every member of the team,
| front and back of house, studies.
|
| "We get hundreds of emails a day, and the intimate details that
| some people are willing to share, sometimes we're like 'Holy
| crap. I can't believe you told us that,'" Booth said. "But then
| there's the fun, the literal joy, our team feels when they get to
| make these special touches with those details."
|
| --
|
| That sounds great to me! I think some commenters are imagining a
| kind of Black Mirror meets Berghain meets social credit scenario,
| but it seems like really none of those things. Cynically, one
| could perhaps paint it as another clever way for Bay Area folks
| to convert capital into emotionally emulated human experiences,
| though even amongst that list I'd consider it one of the more
| wholesome.
| borski wrote:
| I completely agree with you.
| jqpabc123 wrote:
| Seems like the potential start of a dystopian nightmare to me.
|
| Wouldn't be better for all concerned if a 2 star restaurant
| worked at providing better food and service instead of privacy
| invasion and exploitation of the vain?
| AznHisoka wrote:
| There are exactly 2 restaurants I recommend to people, and
| invite family/friends to when they're visiting.
|
| Absolutely none of these restaurants know who I am, do anything
| special for me, or even know my favorite dishes.
|
| The only thing they have in common is they consistently make
| delicious tasting food. And they probably focus a lot on doing
| that. Its that simple.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| I assume you're referring to Jacques Imo's in New Orleans,
| then :)
| zacharycohn wrote:
| For people who go to these restaurants, this _is_ better
| service. You wouldn 't find this happening at Red Robin. This
| is what they are paying for.
|
| If it's not for you, that's fine.
| sublinear wrote:
| I think you totally could replicate these experiences without
| the restaurant involved. Fun surprises are nice, but the
| absurdity of having the restaurant provide _these kinds_ of
| experiences seems tacky.
|
| I don't think I'm alone in wanting the restaurant's
| personality to be just as much a part of the experience as my
| own personality. Otherwise, what makes this place more
| special than any other wanting to pull the same gimmicks?
| sublinear wrote:
| Despite much hype, past a certain point even the highest end
| food really is... just food.
|
| The service is what people really pay for, and there I agree
| that there should be much more interesting ideas to elevate the
| experience than bringing in a baby penguin. I don't see
| anything in the article as particularly creative.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _past a certain point even the highest end food really
| is... just food_
|
| That point is still well up there. The difference between
| hours-picked tomatoes and Aramark sludge is worth paying for.
| smitelli wrote:
| I gotta say, I don't have the right personality traits to enjoy
| this kind of personal attention a lot of the time.
|
| I've had experiences where the counter staff at my daily
| breakfast place started to recognize me and know what "usual" my
| order was going to be without my having to say it... and it
| really weirded me out more than anything else.
|
| Sometimes I just want to be a faceless nobody, forgotten day
| after day by the businesses I visit and the public spaces I
| navigate.
| mingus88 wrote:
| Yeah I'm heavily introverted and feel the same way. It
| establishes a kind of social pressure that if I fail to hold up
| my side of the relationship I just get anxious
| satvikpendem wrote:
| If you go so often that people remember you, I mean, what do
| you expect, that they somehow block the memory of you from
| their mind?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _I don 't have the right personality traits to enjoy this
| kind of personal attention a lot of the time_
|
| Have friends who work at the Four Seasons. This-- _low_ service
| interaction--is a common type of personalised attention patrons
| want.
|
| I don't think there is a social media cue for it. But even as
| someone who's fairly extroverted, I got a note indicating I
| should be left alone if dining alone and reading.
| rglover wrote:
| So this is basically a modern approach to Danny Meyer's (Union
| Square Hospitality Group [1]) "collecting the dots" he described
| in his book Setting the Table [2].
|
| His suggestion was to have staff listen to conversations (and
| have conversations with guests) and then record any interesting
| "dots" like a child having a graduation coming up or an
| anniversary just around the corner. That way on their next visit
| the staff could be well-prepared.
|
| Click-bait headline makes you think otherwise, but this is just
| standard hospitality stuff.
|
| [1] https://www.ushg.com/
|
| [2] https://www.amazon.com/Setting-Table-Transforming-
| Hospitalit...
| satvikpendem wrote:
| It's funny to read these comments, of course HN would react this
| way but since the vast majority of restaurant patrons are so-
| called normies, it doesn't make much sense to cater to HNers. In
| fact, most normal people actually _prefer_ that restaurants know
| their interests and cater to them, it leads to their higher
| satisfaction and makes the restaurant experience (which includes
| more than just the taste of the food, for most people at least)
| more memorable overall.
| sublinear wrote:
| I don't see what's so normal about any of this. In the past
| your friends would just mention a few hints while making the
| reservation... and people still do this now.
|
| If they need to scan your social media, that speaks volumes
| about how you socialize and the quality of those interactions.
| Plenty of "normal" people don't want this either. The thoughts
| mean more coming from your friends than a creepy restaurant.
| cyberge99 wrote:
| I wonder if there's ever been a case of mistaken identity. A
| bear lover instead of a penguin lover for example.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| I'm genuinely confused by people who find it creepy that
| their public social media be scanned and analysed. You made
| it public!
| sublinear wrote:
| The creepy part isn't what, but why. The article later
| mentions a place that is "old school" and actually talks to
| their patrons.
|
| If the goal is to attract and keep patrons, especially at a
| high end restaurant where details matter, I think some
| formalities are still reasonably expected.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| You're proving my point. Only do people on HN care, I've
| never heard of anyone "normal" expressing concern over this
| sort of restaurant policy, and doubly so if they made their
| entire account public in the first place. By all means,
| friends can mention a few hints, but that doesn't mean that
| restaurants won't do their own research.
|
| > _If they need to scan your social media, that speaks
| volumes about how you socialize and the quality of those
| interactions._
|
| No, it doesn't, and I don't see how you came to the
| conclusion that if a restaurant had to scan my social media
| that it says anything about how I socialize. People don't
| _just_ socialize only on social media, you know.
| sublinear wrote:
| All I'm saying is if I'm important to the business they
| should take the time to know me in person, not try to
| leverage technology to make this more efficient. The
| customer is not cattle.
|
| If my friends care, they will know what to surprise me with
| better than someone who glanced online as a rote part of
| their job.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| What gave you the impression that they don't also talk to
| their customers as well?
| astrange wrote:
| Good opportunity to learn about SingleThread, which is a
| 90s-style throwback to when it was impossible to learn anything
| about Japan so people just made things up. Like, they call their
| customers "chairman of the board" because they just heard a
| random word somewhere?
|
| Japanese customer service ("omotenashi") is mostly about not
| listening to your customers. You get exactly what they want to
| give you and that's it. If you have a dietary restriction they
| may just kick you out because they won't/can't change the menu.
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| Privacy concerns aside, I would be mortified if a restaurant did
| something special for me. I don't want extra attention. I don't
| want to have to pretend to be excited about a beverage I don't
| really care for or a gift I will just throw away.
|
| Now if you will excuse, I see some clouds at which I need to
| shake my cane.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| What if their special thing _for you_ was to treat you like a
| truly genetic customer?
|
| I.e., like what Leslie Knope did for Run Swanson on his
| birthday.
| userbinator wrote:
| It must be emphasised that they're doing this with public
| information and presumably whatever else you've implicitly
| consented to giving them, so I don't see a problem with that.
| Nonetheless this isn't the experience I'd want from a restaurant,
| and fortunately there are plenty of others to choose from.
| asdf6969 wrote:
| Maybe I'll start taking pictures of the owners kids playing in
| the yard so I can establish a better relationship with the
| business and get better service.
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