The outrageous customer behaviour Toronto restaurateurs can’t stand

There’s never been a more punishing time to be a restaurant owner in Toronto. With the cost of everything climbing and margins shrinking, restaurateurs are having to raise prices just to keep the lights on. As a diner, it’s hard not to feel the sting—going out for a meal is more expensive than it’s ever been. The trouble starts when that sting starts to feel like entitlement. So consider this a small PSA as we head into the busy holiday season—a refresher on dining-room manners.

Related: True tales of Toronto’s most ill-mannered restaurant guests

We asked a handful of industry vets to name the faux pas they’d most like to see retired. The big offenders? Reservation no-shows, chronic over-stayers, vaping at the table (!!!) and people who save complaints for Google instead of just speaking with a staff member IRL—the one person who could fix the problem—before choosing digital violence. Here’s a non-exhaustive list of what not to do, so you don’t end up on the naughty list.

“My biggest plea: stop vaping in the dining room,” says Bar Isabel operating partner Alessandro Pietropaolo. “You look like a child sucking on a juice box, and you know you’re not allowed to—go outside and smoke a real cigarette like an adult. We keep guest notes, which means we know exactly who does it every time, even after we’ve asked them not to.

“Then there’s the nightly discourtesy at the host stand: I say, ‘Good evening, how are you?’ and someone just flashes two fingers at me. Basic manners haven’t gone out of style.

“And finally, a tiny old-school point of etiquette: if I hand you your dining partner’s coat, it’s because you’re meant to help them into it. The number of men who say, ‘That’s not my coat’ and then stand there watching their date struggle to get her own coat on is astonishing. Little gestures matter, and they set the tone for the whole room.”

“At Stop, cancellations made more than 12 hours before a reservation aren’t charged, but after that, a fee applies,” says Stop Restaurant chef-owner Denis Ganshonkov. “When people book a table on Resy, they agree to these terms—twice—and yet some still block their credit card when the charge goes through, which feels profoundly disrespectful. A reservation is an appointment like any other; your dentist charges if you don’t show. When a restaurant holds a table, it prevents anyone else from booking it. When a reservation doesn’t show, the chances of filling those seats last-minute are minimal at best.

“Sometimes it feels like people have forgotten the basics of communication—all it takes is a call, an email, even a DM, and we’ll do our best to accommodate. I run a small room by design; I pace the night carefully so every guest gets the best experience possible. That only works when people respect their reservations.”

“As much as restaurant people love to complain, I really do think we have it good at Chantecler—most of our guests are kind, patient and very easy to look after,” says Chantecler owner Jacob Wharton-Shukster.

“The only thing that reliably makes my eye twitch is when people treat a two-hour seating as a loose suggestion, then seem baffled that staying 40 minutes past dessert means another table is waiting at the door for their night to start. Ironically, it’s the same group of people who are likely to complain about waiting for their reserved table.”

“What I want—desperately—is for diners to stop pretending they’re experts on cuisines they barely understand,” says Eva Chin, chef-owner of Yan Dining Room. “If you’re eating Chinese food, don’t lecture me on what a ‘reputable’ Chinese restaurant should serve. I once had a guest sneer at the jasmine tea we poured—which was an incredibly high-grade Taiwanese tea that I flew across the world to source—because, in her opinion, only cheap restaurants serve jasmine.

“It’s the same energy as the woman at 20 Victoria who was scandalized to see a salad in a fine-dining restaurant. People arrive with these rigid stereotypes of what a cuisine is supposed to be, then get offended when reality doesn’t match their personal Wikipedia. I’m not claiming to be the gold standard of authenticity—I’m doing my own thing—but, please, ask a question instead of declaring something ‘wrong.’ Have some curiosity.

“As one GM friend told me, when diners come in open-minded, excited and ready to learn, everyone has a good night. When they show up combative, they’ve already decided the meal will disappoint. Half of the dining experience comes from the diner. So come with an open mind, not a checklist.”

“The line I hear most at the door isn’t How long is the wait?—it’s I know the owner,” says Mike Swirla, partner at No Vacancy. “And the thing is, in Toronto right now, a lot of people do know an owner. There are so many restaurants, so many partnerships, so many people with equity, that half the city can legitimately claim some connection.

“Add in the fact that a night out is more expensive than it used to be, and people want a little extra for their dollar—preferential seating, faster service, a quiet bump to the front of the line. But it puts our staff in an awkward spot. They’re the ones who have to negotiate someone’s special treatment against a small room, a real wait list and a dozen other guests who deserve the same thing. The whole point of No Vacancy is that everyone gets the same warmth and attention, whether you know one of us or not.”

“Honestly, what bugs me most is when something’s off during dinner and I hear about it days later in a Google review,” says Patrick Groves, general manager of Contrada. “We’re so used to the star-rating world of Uber Eats that people forget they can just let their server know. Most things, especially seasoning tweaks, we can fix in minutes.

“What gets me isn’t the complaint—it’s when someone insists that everything’s fine even though it clearly wasn’t, because they then take the time to post online about it. A big part of front-of-house work is making people comfortable enough to say what they actually feel. When that doesn’t happen, it feels like we never broke past that transactional layer.”

“What really gets me isn’t no-shows—we’re lucky to have a solid clientele, and that rarely happens,” says Adam Colquhoun, owner of Oyster Boy. “My biggest headache is when people show up already half in the bag and decide to finish the job here.

“We’re a restaurant, not a bar, and when someone comes in drunk, gets louder with every oyster and starts being rude to my staff or disrupting other tables, that crosses a line. Folks can’t hold their booze, then act shocked when we cut them off—I’ve only had a bottle of wine!—conveniently forgetting whatever they drank before they arrived. It’s disrespectful to everyone in the room. If you want to dine here, come to actually dine—not to cause a scene. Since Covid, I’ve had to throw out more people in the past five years than I did in the previous 20, and that tells you everything.”

“Just yesterday, someone placed a $200 takeout order and never showed, never paid,” says Jeanette Liu, co-owner of Yueh Tung. “That hits harder than a no-show reservation. And when a big order comes in close to closing, we prep, we cook, we keep staff on late to make sure it’s perfect and ready the moment the customer walks in. My team stays past hours, we hold the food, we keep the lights on—and then sometimes…nothing. No call, no message, no answer.

“For a small family-run restaurant, it isn’t just inconvenient; it’s disrespectful. It’s wasted food and wasted labour. We put our hearts into this, and all we ask for is a little courtesy. If plans change, just let us know. Basic decency goes a long way.”

“I really do want every guest to have a great night at our restaurant, but timing is the domino that holds the whole service together,” says Chanelle Amey, general manager of Linny’s. “When someone arrives half an hour early or late, it throws off a carefully choreographed plan meant to keep the kitchen, bar and floor humming without bottlenecks.

“And just because there are empty tables when you walk in doesn’t mean they’re actually available. We’re pacing the room for what it will look like two hours from now, not at this exact moment. We put a lot of care into making the experience feel seamless, and it really helps when guests keep that in mind—and, yes, that includes factoring in the nightmare that is parking on Ossington.”