Michael Bauer posted a very interesting story from a reader on his SF Chronicle blog, Between Meals. The gist of it is that, on Mother's Day, the reader and his family showed up at a restaurant, arriving at the time of their reservation, to find that their table (and name) had been taken by another, already seated, party. The manager must not have believed that this family had actually placed the original reservation because, instead of offering to seat the displaced patrons as soon as possible, offering them free drinks in compensation, or even double-checking the cell phone number on the reservation, he said "you need to wait until a vacancy occurs in the reservation list. As it is Mother's Day, and we have only so many tables available, it may be an hour or so." 

The family, less than thrilled about being treated as though they have never had a reservation, actually threatened to confront the party who stole the original reservation, but the manager finally, angrily, sat them. He then later instructed their (crying) waitress to tell them "that the kitchen was completely out of all the desserts, coffee and espresso" apparently is some attempt to take revenge on them.

I strongly suggest that you read the whole post to grasp the full craziness of this manager. True - the family might not have threatened a confrontation and the manager did have something invested in keeping the thieving party in the restaurant, but for the him to refuse to accommodate the family's reservation (after giving it away) is just ridiculous.

I have never had a reservation "stolen" from me in a restaurant, but I can only imagine how irritated I would be, especially on a holiday like Mother's Day when reservations are at a premium. The unfortunate thing about this incident is - poor service notwithstanding - that the thieving party will undoubtedly do it again because they "got away with it." We can only hope that they don't do it at a restaurant we're planning to eat at.