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National Restaurant News, February 28th, 2005, by Milford Prewitt
Operators see pros, cons in online-reservations boom
Online reservation networks and their restaurant clients say they have disproved the naysayers who predicted in the mid-1990s that consumer apathy and lack of operator interest would undermine the potential growth of table bookings via the Internet…
At least two dozen popular restaurant reservation sites — apparently dominated in the main by OpenTable.com but including RestaurantRow.com, Foodline.com and DinnerBroker.com — have become sophisticated, visually enticing and consumer-friendly.
Diners who use such Web sites not only are offered the freedom and confidence of selecting the day and time of their choosing but also can lock in specific tables in dining rooms around the world. Prospective guests even can view menus, see pictures of the dining room, read the chef's bio, inform the kitchen about allergies, read restaurant reviews and alert the staff if the dinner is a special occasion....
DinnerBroker.com, above, restaurantrow.com and OpenTable.com, are three of the many Web sites that allow diners to reserve tables instantly at restaurants worldwide.
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While booking a table online is as easy as buying a DVD at Amazon.com or bidding on an antique doorknob at Ebay.com, no Internet-trends spotters or researchers of so-called e-commerce retailing appear to be tracking the macroeconomic magnitude of Web-enabled restaurant reservations.
One published estimate, from Business Week in 2001, held that Web-generated restaurant bookings by travelers and tourists were worth $2 billion in annual foodservice sales. That now seems a trifle in comparison with the $476 billion in
Even operators who said they are major fans of reservation networks said Internet-accessed bookings fill only a fraction of their seating.
"I think when I was general manager at Verbena, we were the first in the city to sign on with OpenTable, in '97 or '98, and I've been a big fan ever since," said Todd McMullin, general manager of Off The Menu Corp., operator of the highly popular restaurant Ouest and the new Cesca in Manhattan.
"But it is not a huge number of seats OpenTable fills for us, maybe 10 percent at best. These systems will never replace a human and a phone."
McMullin said he really appreciates that online systems give guests the freedom to book whenever they want, not just when the restaurant is open. He said the majority of the reservations made through OpenTable.com come in between 10 p.m. and 10 a.m. …
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