If you are a regular at Asheville’s best restaurants or are accustomed to using opentable.com to book seats when you travel, take note because there is a new player in the online restaurant reservations game. Open Table has maintained a veritable monopoly in this arena for years now, and while it is convenient for the consumer it has been a costly platform for restaurants who have been pretty much obligated to use the system for fear of missing out on the wide number of patrons that solely use Open Table because of the point earning incentives it offers. As has been the case in many major markets already, a contingency of Asheville’s best restaurants are leaving Open Table en masse, to show solidarity and lessen the risk involved in abandoning the booking behemoth alone. While you may have to download another app for your phone you can take heart in knowing that reserve.com was crafted by restaurant professionals and offers much fairer policies and fees for their partners. Here is this weeks press release from Corner Kitchen and Chestnut published by Mountain Xpress:
Asheville restaurants band together and switch reservation system
Press release from Westmoreland & Scully:
In 2017, many of Asheville’s independent restaurants will change their online reservation system to Reserve.com. This is due to Reserve’s amazing range of options for restaurants and guests, ease of use, and fee structure.
By January 10, these Asheville restaurants will switch to Reserve: Ambrozia, Blackbird, Blue Dream Curry, Chestnut, Corner Kitchen, Curate, Limones, Nightbell, Plant, Posana, Rezaz, Rhubarb, Smoky Park Supper Club (already using Reserve) and Zambra. By March 23, the second wave of Asheville restaurants will switch over: Bhramari Brew House, Bouchon Encore, Buffalo Nickel, Calypso, Chiesa, Chop House, Copper Crown, Jargon, Pomodoros.
Reserve was developed by former restaurant managers and professionals, designed with the guest in mind but maximized for ease of the staff. It is utilized by over 500 restaurants in many large food cities, like New York, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and soon, Asheville.
For restaurant guests, changes will be minimal, each restaurant will still accept phone reservations. Like OpenTable, widgets will be installed on each restaurant’s website for guest use. In addition, Reserve has a free app that guests can use to book tables with a few taps on their device.
Restaurants will also be able to save information about guests and search for people more easily, which results in better service for the guest. If a restaurant has more than one location owned by the same restaurant group the new system will allow them to share guest notes like seating preferences, allergies, and birthdays, between locations.