Apologies to Four Spring -- You Can Sell Restaurant Reservations

After doing some research, I found out that there are several sites that permit people to sell reservations to selected restaurants. Almost forming a secondary market for restaurant reservations. These sites include Tock, Appointment Trader and Dorsia I therefore apologize to Four Spring in Oyster Bay for crapping all over their comment that reservations are like getting a ticket to a concert.

Generally, the way these sites work is that they create a marketplace of sellers and buyers of restaurant reservations. If you want an in demand reservation, you could bid on it based upon size of party, date and time. For example, a reservation for 6 at Laser Wolf in Brooklyn runs between $130 to $240 based upon the date and time. The cost of dinner is on top of that. If there is a deposit for the reservation that would also be an added cost. To put it bluntly, this fee is exchange for the a reservation that someone else made for free.

A few commentators have said that certain restaurants are canceling the reservation if they discover that a customer bought the reservation from one of these sites. Many commentators say there is a select group of restaurants that automatically cancel these reservations leaving the customers high and dry.

These restaurants claim that these sites increase their no show rates. I find that hard to believe because if someone pays for a reservation then that person will show up. This no show concern seems to be the go to rationale for restaurants since they charge deposits for reservations in order to decrease the no show rates. They also overbook reservations due to the no show rates. I bet that these restaurants would not have any issues if these sites increased their bottom line.

To avoid the cancellation of reservations, Dorsia takes a different approach, they partner with the restaurants and presumably split revenue with them so their reservations will be honored. You do not hear any issues from these sites since they probably make money for their trouble.

If you can get over the fact that you are double paying for dinner at the best restaurants (probably not double paying since these restaurants tend to be the more expensive ones but the description worked so I used it), this is a great way to obtain hard to get reservations. I would try it but I am too cheap to double pay for dinner. I will have to reach out to some of my friends to see if they are interested in these services.

#foodwithaview #foodporn #foodie #foodstagram #foodpics #restaurantreview #reviewrestaurant #grub #grubbing #reservationsales #dorsia #tock #appointmenttrader