OpenTable: An app that’ll keep you from wrecking Valentine’s again
Will Brinson
It probably would have been smart to bring OpenTable to your attention BEFORE Valentine’s Day. So, yeah, my bad on that, because it’s actually quite a fantastic little service and could have saved you from having that vase of fake peonies chunked at your head late Monday.
OpenTable, simply put, is a free reservation service that works with consumers AND restaurants.
The combo is key because they’re not poaching tables or anything. Rather, when you go to, say, the website for Morton’s in Chicago to make reservations, you’ll be redirected to Open Table’s site.
So that’s nice. But what makes Open Table the absolute jam for mobile users is that you can quickly dial up a reservation at a nice restaurant without having to actually 1) think about where you want to eat, 2) figure out what time you want to eat and 3) call a bunch of different places to finalize those plans.
What happens is, you fire up the app and tell it what location you’re looking for (geographically — for this example we’ll use Greensboro, NC, which is a happening place, lemme tell you):
After picking your preferred reservation time and geo-target, you’re given a huge list of options.
And if you can’t figure out how this is immediately 5 million times better than flipping through a phonebook or searching “food” (or “restaurant”) on Google Maps, well, you’re doomed anyway. Next stop: filter this sucker out. Options include the obvious (neighborhood — in this case Burlington vs. Greensboro — or cuisine — American, Brazilian, Contemporary American, European, Fusion/Electric, Global, Italian, Southern, Steak are all there – or price. You can also select only “1,000 point tables” which is OT’s reward system.)
From there, it’s pretty self-explanatory, but what’s great is that once you select your restaurant of preference, you’re given a list of times either a) near what you want or b) as close to what you want as is available. This is crucial for stuff like Valentine’s Day, because it’s pretty rare when that 8:00 reservation at the nicest spot in town is wide open.
For what it’s worth, I used Open Table this year and was able to pull — about three hours before dinner on Saturday before Valentine’s Day — a 8:45 reservation at one of the swankier restaurants in Greensboro after our top choice was already booked. (Neither option was Ruth Chris, below, but it’s pretty swell, duh.)
After that, you book the reservation, you get an email and your table’s waiting for you. There’s also sometimes the added bonus of being able to send flowers TO THE TABLE. I did this at Morton’s in Chicago on a visit there last summer and, I promise, it’s worth the cash, because you look like a baller.
Or a thoughtful dude who feels like spending $300 on steak. Either way works.
follow guyism:
Other Stories You Might LIke
Bill James announces Baseball IQ app for iPhone, iPad
comment on this story
blog comments powered by Disqus