Best restaurant tables on Las Vegas Strip often come with extra fee

You can’t eat the view, goes an old saying about restaurants possessed of gorgeous vistas. But you can certainly charge for it.

On the Las Vegas Strip, some restaurants levy a premium for tables overlooking the boulevard or shooting fountains or the city itself from on high. Often, the premium takes the form of a minimum spend on food and drink, typically in excess of $100 per person. Other times, the premium simply guarantees a spot on the patio or by the window, with food and drink charged separately.

Vegas built itself, in part, on access, exclusivity, the inside line, and these fees grow out of that history. But they also reflect the current cultural moment in which splurging seems almost obligatory (especially in Vegas), where dining out is framed as entertainment (especially “immersive” entertainment), where lurking digital algorithms conspire to provide content, from news feeds to shopping sites, that is tailored to user preferences.

“It’s part of the whole experience economy,” said Joseph Lema, a professor of hospitality at UNLV who studies restaurants. “A personalized experience or customized experience — that’s how the industry is selling it. If you want something specific for your needs, you are just going to have to pay extra. We’re only going to get more of it.”

Optimizing an asset

Lema reckons that table fees emerged in Vegas about 20 to 25 years ago, a period, perhaps not coincidental, that saw the rise of megaresorts on the Strip. Over the years, he said, the premiums have become more accepted. “The Strip is a unique environment. I don’t think you could pull this off in the Midwest.”

And if you consider views an asset, then table fees — prepaid through OpenTable or the restaurant website — represent a good use of that asset. “Restaurants want to optimize their business and their space,” Lema said.

Food and drink not included

At Top of the World Steakhouse, with far-flung views of the Las Vegas Valley from 844 feet up at The Strat, a window seat on the rotating floor of the restaurant costs $27 per person, while seats on the rotating tier just up from the floor cost $15 per person. (Balcony seats aren’t extra, but they don’t rotate, either.)

Caramella at Planet Hollywood charges $29.99 per person for its Fountain View Experience — a table with views of the dancing Fountains of Bellagio across the street.

Eiffel Tower Restaurant in Paris Las Vegas also harnesses sight lines to the fountains. A $40 per person fee applies for a guaranteed window table looking onto the Strip. For $75 per person, the Iconic View for Four table overlooks the Strip and includes two Eiffel Tower cookbooks (but don’t linger — there’s a two-hour dining limit).

At all three places, fees only guarantee the table; food and drink are extra.

Putting a price on a view

Other restaurants take the minimum-spend approach to highly sought-after seating.

At Giada atop The Cromwell (soon to be the Vanderpump Hotel), a window table reservation with a Strip view requires a food and beverage total of at least $125 per person. Sansui Dining at Wynn Las Vegas, featuring a private table set over a serene koi pond fed by two cascading waterfalls, fetches a $175 per person minimum.

The restaurants ringing the Bellagio lagoon with its surging fountains know the value of their real estate. Lago offers a guaranteed patio reservation nightly for a tab of at least $150 per person. Prime Steakhouse calls for a $175 per person minimum to be seated outside. At the new Carbone Riviera, a place on the deck, just above the water, comes with a minimum spend of at least $175 per person.

Customers are not equal

Many diners assume that restaurant seating is a democracy or something akin to being random, but save for those places with “seat yourself” signs, who gets seated where in a restaurant does not happen by chance.

Among the factors that determine seating: accommodating regulars, honoring reservations versus walk-ins, matching party sizes to table sizes, balancing server workload (especially if one server has a large group or quarrelsome customers), and assessing table flow (a single diner who might finish quickly versus a date-night couple who might camp out versus a family whose children might need easy access to the bathroom).

On the Strip, there is an additional factor that perhaps overrides all others: the presence of comped players and casino guests who expect to be seated promptly at reserved tables that have been waiting for their arrival.

From the point of view of the restaurant, a table premium, besides being a source of revenue, is also a tool for narrowing the nightly seating decisions that must be made. You don’t expect the best seats at a concert or on a plane to come without a premium, the thinking goes, so why be surprised when restaurants follow suit?

The new tipping

From the point of view of the customer, however, things are more complicated.

“They’re aimed mainly at the upscale market,” Lema said of the premiums. “To other segments of the market, it might seem unfair.” Transparency with customers is essential, he said.

“Management needs to communicate to guests clearly about tiered pricing, especially the repeat guests. A lot of people celebrate things in Vegas, and they’re willing to splurge, but they need to understand the pricing.” All the restaurants discussed here clearly disclose table premiums in their reservation systems or on OpenTable.

Being upfront about table fees also helps eliminate customer surprises, like a situation “where you got engaged at a restaurant, and you come back years later, and there’s this fee because of the unique setting — that’s where you get some pushback,” Lema said.

“Restaurants have to be careful that they don’t seem like they’re just trying to get extra fees out of you,” and that’s especially important now in Vegas amid customer complaints about resort fees and other prices.

Back in the day, Lema said, you tipped the maître d’ if you wanted a choice table in a fine restaurant on the Strip. Today, the awkward sliding of bills into palms has been replaced by the anonymity of clicks or taps. But you’re still paying for that table in heaven.

Contact Johnathan L. Wright at jwright@reviewjournal.com. Follow @JLWTaste on Instagram.