Ko woes (Quick, you have 4 seconds to make a reservation)

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I’ve jumped into the Momofuku Ko reservation fray. I’m going to New York this weekend and have been logging on to the online reservation system every morning at 6:59 a.m. for the past several days. Jeesh, if New Yorkers think they have it tough trying to get a reservation at David Chang’s 12-seat restaurant, try doing it from the West Coast.

The reservation system opens at 10 a.m. East Coast time, showing seats available for seven days out. But there are so many people clicking for seats that it’s near impossible to get one. It really does drive people nuts -- I was pre-coffee delirious on Saturday morning (Saturday! I should have still been in bed) when I clicked on the link at the bottom of the page that said ‘help is here’ and sent an e-mail to the reservation powers that be, saying all kinds of stupid things about how I’d been up since the crack of dawn and complaining about how my Internet connection wasn’t fast enough. I didn’t expect a reply, but I got one:

‘this morning there were several hundred people actively logged onto the system and all the reservations went in the first four seconds. with everyone trying to get what amounts to 14 reservations the odds of getting a seat are certainly slim but your internet connection speed is basically irrelevant; it’s just plain old busy. ...

check out these recent articles:

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jUtyh9e9IMll4s3E3fqUCciridQwD900E0N00

http://gothamist.com/2008/04/04/momofuku_ko_onl.php

thanks for your interest in ko.’

Four seconds?!
-- Betty Hallock