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[title]It went off with a number of hitches, but nonetheless tickets to Next—Grant Achatz and Nick Kokonas's period-inspired restaurant in Chicago's West Loop—finally went on sale today. Of course, in order to have had a chance to get one, you would have had to have been among the first to sign up for the email list (which is now closed) on the restaurant's website. And because of "email slowness," you would also have to be a little bit...lucky. Many people received notification that they could purchase tickets on the site but didn't receive the necessary password to do so, causing some serious moaning on Twitter. The site stopped accepting reservations for today (opening night) at 4pm, and over Facebook, Next announced it would not send emails to the next segment of the list until tomorrow morning. Despite these hiccups, I was fortunate enough to receive an email and book my tickets today. Check out the slide show above to see how the unusual reservation system—in which non-refundable tickets are issued at different prices depending on the day of the week and time preferred—works.
If a sexy-but-wonky reservation system isn't sating your Next appetite, check out the Eat Out section this week, in which we get aquainted with the chefs behind Achatz, and find out what is actually in the "clear cocktail" at the Aviary.