has opentable made it easier or harder to make reservations?
 

So yes, with opentable it is very easy to make a reservation. You pop online and boom, you get a reservation. No waiting till after 3pm to call the restaurant or whatever, you get all your choices on one screen, etc.

But, it seems to me that with this new ease of making reservations, spots at good places are getting harder and harder to come by. I find that I am making reservations 2 weeks in advance for restaurants we would normally call the day before and be seated at.

So I have mixed feelings about the opentable thing. I think overall I like it, but I do not appreciate how it has upped the competition for tables by making it much easier to make a reservation.

Thoughts?

restaurants are able to hold reservations back.

after open table showed the place full, i called one in alexandria recently and asked why no 6:30s available for the next month.

"we hold them for walk ins"

i told them i was the gerald and requested a table for that night(a tuesday, no less). only one other table was taken at 6:30. since the party of 4 ordered 4 bottles of wine, we requested and received a table for 6 or 8.

lot of people showed up at 7-730.

the open table selection in the dc area is about 50% of all, max.

Agreed with Slawecki. Depending on the restaurant, OpenTable seats will be a larger or smaller proportion of their total seats. Restaurants have to pay some sort of booking fee for each reservation completed through OpenTable -- I made reservations at this dessert restaurant once just to have dessert. When we arrived and asked only for the dessert menu, the hostess came by to tell me that she was happy to seat us, but that I wouldn't receive any OpenTable points for it. That was fine for me -- I hate making phone calls -- but it was a little awkward. Anyway, restaurants appreciate the direct calls to make reservations.

Depends on the restaurant. For me it's just easy to make a few clicks at a place if it's available and have the reservation.

At other places, where the only availability on opentable is say 5:30 or 2 am, then it's better to call and get a time you want.

I usually look at opentable first though, I find it so convenient

I love Opentable...haven't found it harder to get reservations here in DC. I love the VIP program that Opentable has in place here in DC...always fun to get free drinks/dessert/appetizers!

I agree with others, opentable is overall a convenient tool, but most restaurants hold back some reservations. I've many times found lack of availabilty at places I want to go, but a phone call reveals that I can book.

One thing I've noticed with a few places here in Los Angeles, the restaurant will only take reservations on opentable for half past and on the hour, but a phone call can book a table at :15 and :45.

I very rarely make restaurant reservations; I can probably count on one hand the amount of times I've left a restaurant because (1) it was too full to accommodate me or (2) the wait was unreasonable.

It makes things way easier here in SF. I realize they hold back but I love being able to see all restaurants with availability in one place.

yea, me too. when the line at the drive in window gets to long, i just park the car and go inside........
:p.

There are a few restaurants we like here in Boston where it is often too full to accommodate. They won't even put you on the list if you wanted to wait. :(

Now the real question...do you let your date come in, or have her just wait in the car? :D

I wish Opentable had a better feature for searching for the next open spot at a given resaturant, regardless how far in the future it might be. Currently you have to specify a desired time, and it only searches a couple hours before/after that time. If you really want to eat at a specific restaurant, you have to do a million individual searches at 4-hour intervals.

On that note, has anyone EVER seen an open spot at Per Se in NYC through OpenTable?

If it's like the French Laundry in CA, there is one table open per service, exactly 2 months ahead of time. I've had luck waiting at 11:59pm hitting refresh to see the table open up and grab the res once it's midnight. Helps to have your CC info already "copied" to be pasted instantly.