A popular U.S. restaurant with an intimate dining room that holds only 40 seats manages all of its reservations by postcard.
Freedom, Maine’s The Lost Kitchen (TLK) is a “farm-to-kitchen” restaurant that promotes local food. Despite its small dining room, the restaurant received 10,000 calls for reservations between May and December of last year.
While some consider postcards an outdated form of communication, chef Erin French chose to forgo phone reservations beginning this year; instead, interested diners must now apply by postcard.
“Here at TLK we are old-fashioned, we are simple, we are slow, we are Mainers,” wrote French on the restaurant’s website. “We prefer human contact over computers and pen and paper over keyboards.”
Reservations for this year were required to be mailed and received between April 1 and April 10; however, sending a request via postcard did not guarantee a reservation. On April 11, the restaurant randomly chose cards until all of this year’s reservations were filled.
French has since advised her customers to check back next March for details about how to submit for reservations for next year.