It will also help with the problem of massive cancellations from the people who try to sell reservations and then cancel 24 hours before which is a royal pain for restaurants.
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Yes I agree itās pro-restaurant.
Through that specific problem has been somewhat mitigated by cancelation fees. Not a perfect solution of course. No call, no show predates the reservation scalping era.
its gotta make it a BIT easier right? if thereās nowhere for people with bots to sell the reservations they procure that way, it makes it a bit easier Iād think? I mean the Tatiana and Atomix reservations are gone faster than itās even possible to refresh the page. I canāt imagine all of those went to people who actually showed up those nights. how many people build bots for their own reservations? genuinely curious
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only if by āa bitā you mean some statistical possibility but effectively the same. the demand far outstrips the supply and iām not at all convinced this law can come close to preventing all sales. i mean, anyone can make a reservation and list it on a private telegram group for sale. thereās no practical way to police this nor should any resources be spent thereon.
creating a bot to attempt to grab a reservation is trivial - if you donāt have the technical knowledge yourself, you can find someone to do it for maybe a few hundred dollars. it might suck, but given the insignificant barrier to entry, we should assume there are many doing it (there are). the effect is just hammering a website that isnāt meant to handle this use case with immense traffic.
atomix is a special case because itās on tock - so the economics are changed slightly.
even if we assume for this argument that 100% of the bots and scalpers immediately leave the market, that still leaves every single motivated diner thatās on the app as soon as they need to be for the seat. there arenāt that many seats for these top places so itās kind of a lottery with very long odds getting somewhat shorter, maybe.
a quick glance at dorsia didnāt show tatiana on there.
for the very small handful that have this problem, it seems their best strategy is to just charge more for some / all tables.
Before bots were here, it was often doable - not the impossible task you outline above. Some restaurants would be difficult, the Per Se of the world. But not a situation where the Raoul or Bad Romans of the world were $300 covers.
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these are two very different issues:
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bots making it difficult to get to get popular tables; and (though related)
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platforms / outlets selling reservations for money.
the factors that lead to the above are just an increased demand for certain experiences. why? who knows - social media? an increased premium on experiences? doesnāt matter
but technology allowed the market to step in and creat various ways to capitalize on that demand. recall that when resy first launched, it was all about charging for reservations - this was in 2014!
bots are just a newer method that scales for more people than having a black card and getting your concierge to do it. the best tables were always hard to get.
this isnāt new, just the methods and perhaps the attention drawn.
I guess the genie is out of the bottle and there is no putting it back
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Boom!
Penny
NYT Criticās Pick | ā
ā
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| American, Seafood | $$$ | 90 East 10th Street (Third Avenue), East Village
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Fantastic news for them!
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A little late, but not too late especially with the vast wilderness of NYC dining. Brainstorming for an anniversary dinner spot while weāll be in town on July 2nd.
Current leader is Chambers as a little more of a casual ish spot. Good food and a āgood vibeā is the type weāre going for since weāre closing on a house a week later.
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Claud.
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Totally forgot about Claud. Thank you as always Robert.
Has anyone gone to Sartianoās in the Mercer Hotel?
Need a Saturday night place deep downtown, with more vegetarian options than Chambers.
Any thoughts?
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The menu at Gem is mostly vegetables. I ate there twice last week. If you donāt mind a youngish, slightly lively crowd the menu is what you are looking for.
Maybe Crown Shy?
Thanks! Crown Shy could work.
We went to Gem once, werenāt fans, but thanks for the suggestion.
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Curious, what didnāt you like about it? Also the current format which is technically Gem Wine Bar is different than the tasting menu format of the former Gem restaurant which is temporarily closed.
Bold , unorthodox ,flavor combinations that we didnāt like in 4 of 6 dishes.
We expected to love it.
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