OpenTable Reservations

August 1, 2005 11:39 AM

OpenTable, a free online restaurant reservation system in use at over 3,300 restaurants throughout the US and UK. [via / mentioned]
posted by NotMyselfRightNow (11 comments total)

Um, no.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 11:46 AM on August 1, 2005 [1 favorite]

The reservations in Oklahoma can sell cigarettes without taxes.
posted by buzzman at 12:01 PM on August 1, 2005

Ahem

Also, those of you indignant over privacy concerns might want to avoid using opentable.com. Not only do they save basic, relevant info about your visit (whether you showed, if it was on time, size of party, form of payment) but there's all kinds of optional info a restaurant can add, like size of bill, tip, food preferences, etc.

posted by cavalier at 12:17 PM on August 1, 2005

I used them once, and after getting bombarded relentlessly with spam from them, I vowed to never use 'em again. I complained several times, even got assurances that they'd cut it out, but it continues to this day. I just ended up setting up an email rule to filter 'em straight into the trash. There are still some things that the plain ol' telephone is better for. Is annoying the crap out of your customers really a good business plan?
posted by spilon at 12:26 PM on August 1, 2005

hey great! a FPP about a site that's been around since 1999!

while you're surfing the big ole' interweb there, young NotMyselfRightNow, you'll definately want to check out a site that indexes all sorts of web sites called Yahoo! and also, if you ever need to find anything on the web, you should definately check out this hot new search engine called Google!!
posted by analogue at 2:28 PM on August 1, 2005

Young analogue, you'll definitely want to check out the correct spelling of "definitely!"
posted by wigu at 3:01 PM on August 1, 2005

In NotMyselfRightNow's defense, I don't see why a site has to be new to warrant a FPP. If this was something from 1999 that no one had seen before it wouldn't be a big deal.
posted by danb at 3:28 PM on August 1, 2005

I'd never heard of OpenTable before I started planning my honeymoon in San Francisco back in May. I thought it worked well, my table was reserved to the specifications that I wanted and I didn't have to bother calling long distance. My only complaint was that I asked for a certain table at one restaurant and waited for ten minutes after my reservation, watching other people walk in and sit down before me before the restaurant explained what was going on. I guess that might be more of a complaint against the restaurant though.

It's neat, it's regional, and most people probably have never heard of it. I certainly hadn't since I'm not from California.
posted by Arch Stanton at 5:37 PM on August 1, 2005

edit: or the 16 other metropolitan areas that Open Table serves.
posted by Arch Stanton at 5:41 PM on August 1, 2005

A site really should cover more than London before being described as throughout the UK.
posted by biffa at 2:46 AM on August 2, 2005

MetaFilter: New to you since 1999
posted by CG at 10:27 AM on August 2, 2005 [1 favorite]