Restaurant Reservations Go Online - Part II
June 18, 2007
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Continued from Part I.
The reservations that pop up on the restaurants’ computer screens, especially those made by regulars, are accompanied by an important tidbit or two.
Doug Washington, a co-owner of Town Hall, said the notes were not just helpful, they are occasionally indispensable. Next to the name of one regular, who has a habit of bringing in women he is not married to, is an instruction to make sure the man’s wife has not booked a separate table for the same day.
Another frequent guest asks the restaurant to send over dessert compliments of the chef but to put the charge on the guest’s bill. Of another, who takes many of his first dates to Town Hall, the instructions read, “Do not treat like a regular!”
But unlike owners of most OpenTable restaurants, Mr. Washington will not use a computer at the door. “When you’re coming into a restaurant you should still feel like you’re walking into someone’s home,” he said.
OpenTable, which started in 1999, did not take off right away. The restaurant business greeted OpenTable with a shrug at first, even contempt. Few restaurant owners could see the advantage of paying a dollar per diner to an Internet company, especially when they already had more business than they could handle.
But the company deployed an aggressive sales force, and went to work persuading owners that dining reservations would eventually go the way of hotel and airline reservations by requiring fewer personnel. Restaurant owners began to see how the service increased the number of customers, and they liked the way the software managed the reservation process. Many of the restaurants discovered that they had to surrender to the automation because their popularity suffered if they did not.
“It was a long, long time before that was proven,” said Bill Gurley, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist whose company, Benchmark, has invested $21.6 million in OpenTable over the years.
It took three years for OpenTable to seat its one-millionth diner. But now, the company seats two million diners every month. And Zagat, the restaurant rating service, has adopted OpenTable for reservations made through its site, zagat.com
“It’s not a cheap solution, but it’s a good one,” said Laurence Kretchmer, who, together with Bobby Flay, owns three restaurants, including Bar Americain in Manhattan, all of which are on OpenTable. New York now has more restaurants on OpenTable than San Francisco does.
New York restaurant owners are still resisting the surcharge, especially when it means paying for people who would have eaten at their restaurants anyway. “It adds up,” said Steven Pipes, vice president of hospitality at the Jack Parker Corporation, owners of Le Parker Meridien, home to Norma’s, a popular brunch spot in Midtown Manhattan.“We spend thousands of dollars.”
Still, Mr. Pipes is quick to appreciate the high ranking on OpenTable’s most-booked list. And he likes the information he gleans from the system. “We can know what kind of seating people like,” Mr. Pipes said. “And we can know if they have a favorite server.” And that favorite server can note, ever so discreetly, whether a customer happened to order the restaurant’s $1,000 frittata, or that he is a reliably generous tipper.
Continued in Part III.
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