Future Bookings Policy

An open letter to those planning to make party bookings:

You should never really write these things when you're miffed, but it's quite a depressing day when one is forced to restrict the way one operates a business because of repeated customer insensitivity to your situation.

We have always trusted people to turn up to bookings, with a hope of a recognition that, in a very difficult economy, we are having to put on extra staff and buy in extra food, and cancel other bookings so that we can accommodate the larger ones.

So, each time we have a major cancellation, it's upsetting - Clearly some are perfectly understandable, but on an evening when 3 big reservations of tables cancel at the very last minute, it leaves us with rather a costly situation and 100 seats empty - something that an independent restaurant can not afford to stomach.

So, I regret that from this moment forward we will be taking a card number for each reservation to ensure the booking. We will establish the following procedure;

If the party cancels within 48 hours of the allotted reservation time we will take £5 per person as compensation.

If the total number of the party is reduced by 25% or more then we will take £3 per person for every person not in attendance.

If the party damage the restaurant or refuse to maintain order then we shall take a bond of £50, after the leader of a party are warned twice to act in a more responsible manner.

We do our level best to accommodate all parties and are delighted that The Big Bang is a restaurant where student parties sit alongside parties of tourists and locals, but it is reliant upon the major bookings realising that they are acting as ambassadors for their respective student bodies and if they don't have the maturity to act appropriately, then we have to devise ways to ensure they do, or ask them to dine elsewhere.

In ten years of business I've never had to do this, it's something I've tried hard to avoid, because I think people should be trusted with the maturity to treat us the way we try to treat them.

A sad day, Max