Dining out in Sioux Falls? Better get used to reservations

If you’re looking to dine out on a Saturday night at 7 at Maribella Ristorante, Sioux Falls’ newest Italian restaurant, how does a month from now sound?

That’s the soonest a reservation is available for that day and time at the Washington Square restaurant.

It’s also a reflection of a restaurant culture in Sioux Falls that increasingly has demanded that diners plan ahead for tables at peak times, especially on weekends.

“There’s a reason why we built Maribella with such a large bar area,” co-owner Riccardo Tarabelsi said. “It’s for walk-ins because over the last four years at R Wine Bar, we don’t have a lot of room for walk-ins. We have some, but as we’ve gotten busier and busier, we keep turning people away. It’s almost reservation-only on weekends.”

The growth of online reservations, specifically the platform OpenTable, has opened the door for restaurants to regularly accept and manage reservations. But it also has required that diners plan ahead to secure a table.

The site lists 16 restaurants in Sioux Falls accepting reservations, including Ruthie’s within Grand Falls Casino just across the Iowa border.

Three of those restaurants are owned by Sioux Falls-based Vanguard Hospitality: Grille 26, Minervas and Morrie’s Steakhouse.

“The bigger parties, the private events tend to book out three to 12 months, but the twos and fours usually I see people making reservations a week in advance,” Vanguard CEO Ken Bashore said. “I see a lot of people making standing reservations, particularly at the Grille in the lounge.”

Bashore and Tarabelsi have been part of the Sioux Falls restaurant scene long enough to remember a time when reservations rarely were accepted.

“I was at Spezia in 2000, and it was pretty few and far between that we would take reservations,” Tarabelsi said. “I learned very quickly how to run a waitlist because that’s what happened. But people don’t like to wait anymore. If we tell them we can work you in in 15 minutes, they go somewhere else, and that’s a lot different than how it used to be.”

At Minervas, “we took five or more (people for reservations) for lunch and any for dinner, and it was much more an art than a science,” Bashore said. “You tried to push the envelope as much as you could … but now we’re able to manage the inflow and understand how to manage walk-ins. So you have all your reservations, and if you update the system regularly, it helps you understand what a true wait time is for the guest that walks in.”

Both restaurants agree the days of walking in during peak times and being seated quickly likely have passed.

“It’s hard to walk in on a normal Friday or Saturday night and get a booth,” Bashore said. “At Morrie’s, you can still walk into the bar anytime. It might be full, but you can walk in. At Minervas, you can walk into the Paramount and eat at the rail, and the same thing at Grille. You can walk in the lounge and sit at the bar.”

At Maribella, the designated walk-in area seems to be effective, Tarabelsi said.

“Don’t be discouraged,” he said. “Please just come in, especially if it’s a weeknight. On weeknights, we’ve been able to accommodate everybody that comes in. On weekends, it gets very, very busy, and the bar fills up quickly, but the tables in the bar tend to turn quicker. We tell people to wait a few minutes, and you’ll see people get up, and we’ll clear it right away, and they can sit down.”

Sioux Falls tends to be a town that skews toward eating on the early side — it’s fairly typical to find reservation openings after 8 p.m., for instance.

“Typically, 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. is the heaviest time at Grille,” Bashore said. “At Morrie’s, we used to have one seating a night, and now we’re turning tables twice a night. So we have a first seating and a second seating, and now we’re seeing people coming out on a Friday and Saturday and eating at 9 p.m. The 20- and 30-somethings love to go out late, pre-bar.”

Another pro tip: Tell OpenTable to notify you in case of a cancellation.

“OpenTable is amazing,” Tarabelsi said. “It has made it so much more efficient at taking reservations and being able to turn tables as efficiently as we can.”

At the same time, even a reservation doesn’t guarantee you’ll be seated during your time slot.

“At Maribella, people are staying longer than we’re expecting,” Tarabelsi said. “It’s tough because you have to plan a two to two-and-a-half hour turn on every table, and it doesn’t always work out, so we ask people to be patient even with reservations.”

One exception: chain restaurants. When it comes reservations, Sioux Falls seems to skew local. Want to spent your New Year’s Eve at Granite City, Famous Dave’s, Red Lobster or Dave & Buster’s? There are plenty of reservation slots still open all evening.

And while no-shows aren’t common, they do happen. And OpenTable is watching.

“We can click on OpenTable that they were a no-show, and OpenTable kind of keeps track of that and maybe even sends the guest a notification,” Tarabelsi said.

Too many no-shows and your account can be deactivated.

“It’s huge (to no-show),” he said. “You’re saving a table, and you could have sat someone you just turned away.”