Customers who skip out on their Mother’s Day brunch reservations at The Tap Room at Dubsdread this Sunday will end up paying the $64.95 for the roasted leg of lamb, braised pork belly and other buffet offerings they bailed on.

The business imposed the new policy for big holiday events after 300 people didn’t show up for its Easter buffet earlier this year, said owner Steve Gunter. There were about 1,400 people booked that day between the restaurant in Orlando’s College Park neighborhood and at Apopka’s Highland Manor, where Gunter’s business caters and also had an Easter brunch.

Gunter said thousands of dollars worth of food were thrown out and servers earned less in tips. Easter brunch was fully booked weeks ahead, with 500 potential customers who could have enjoyed the event having been turned away, he said.

“Half of this dining room was empty … for a while. So it just felt very strange, because everything’s decorated and we have all these reservations, and then suddenly you’re just waiting and there’s empty chairs everywhere,” said Carolyn Kuwik, a server at the College Park restaurant. “These are huge days that we really count on because we serve great food and it’s an all-you-can-eat buffet. It’s a premium check, so when a table of eight doesn’t show up, that’s a lot of money.”

Gunter said the problem started about four years ago, before the coronavirus pandemic, but he didn’t like the idea of charging no-shows back then.

The Mother’s Day buffet costs $64.95 for adults and $19.95 for children ages 4 to 10.

The restaurant’s new policy will still only apply to its big holiday events, and not normal lunch or dinner reservations.

“I don’t want to do it to our regulars, because they would never do that to us,” Gunter said.

But charging people who don’t show up for reservations isn’t rare. Walt Disney World’s website states most of the resort’s restaurants charge $10 a person if they don’t show up for their reservation or if they cancel within two hours of their scheduled meal.

Some restaurants there require more notice and charge a larger fee, such as Victoria & Albert’s and Monsieur Paul, which carry a $100 per person fee, according to Disney’s website. Victoria & Albert’s requires guests to cancel five days ahead to avoid the charge, and Monsieur Paul mandates at least three days before the reservation.

Kuwik, 33, of Orlando, has worked as a server since she was in college, and said she has seen no-show fees elsewhere.

“It depends on the quality of the restaurant, but with higher-end places like this, absolutely, because if you’re going to reserve something and then not show up, you’re taking the space of somebody who would have died to be here,” Kuwik said.

While The Tap Room at Dubsdread is taking its holiday reservations by phone, customers booking online after restaurants invested in that technology during the coronavirus pandemic might be part of the problem, said Christopher Leo, associate lecturer at the University of Central Florida’s college of business. Leo owned Amelia’s Italian Restaurant in Casselberry before it was sold in 2011.

“Maybe because of that lack of human interaction, the average consumer feels more emboldened not to show up or not to follow through with the RSVP,” Leo said.

In addition to restaurants charging a fee or requiring a deposit, Leo said restaurants could ban repeat offenders from making reservations again. He said while the problem isn’t big enough yet, if it continues more restaurants will enact policies to curb the bad behavior from guests who skip out.

Back in College Park, Barbara Taggart, 80, of Orlando, had a reservation for her lunch Tuesday at The Tap Room. She called the new no-show policy there “fair.”

“This is a very popular spot in our area and outside of our area, and he only has so many seats to sell,” Taggart said. “If you book a seat and you don’t show up, then I think you’re obliged to pay for the seat.”