The tradition of eating out (a tradition of spending, service, social interaction, good and interesting food, special occasions, meetings, interviews, and of course eating what you can’t make at home) has been pretty consistent in how it is arranged and communicated. Now before someone out there corrects me on something I’m overlooking in regards to the procedure for creating and completing a reservation with a restaurant let me just say this: since as long as I can remember, the procedure for making a reservation mostly included the phone (there were even some restaurants who did not confirm reservations in the restaurant, ie you had to call some number to make it) and was always, in the process of calling, subject to the feared “we’re full” response. Now in a city like New York that response is not devastating as there are numerous other good places to make those special reservations with. But for those of us who spent the last four years of our lives in St. Louis, or more specifically Washington University, that response can lead to problematic situations. Take for example the dinner after graduation, when one is held responsible for calling different places looking for a reservation, one must call each place individually and hope there is room somewhere.
(my personal graduation evening story ended with all of us eating at an Ethiopian restaurant on Grand. I enjoyed the whole finger food experience, my group however, consisting of three families from the North East, were less optimistic towards the whole experience and concluded that a return visit was not necessary.)
So let’s go through the evolution of this somewhat complicated system.
In the beginning when you wanted to secure a reservation for an event you’d have to pick up the Yellow Pages and flip through all the restaurants, discarding those that were too far away, and call each one in turn until you found a reservation for the number of people in party at the time you wanted. Then came the first revolution, the Zagat restaurant guides. These guides offered for the first time a list of restaurants organized by neighborhood. Finally you wouldn’t have to search through all the restaurants in NYC when looking for a reservation. Even better than the neighborhood listing was that they started adding some reviews and perspective with each listing. This form of reservation culture lasted for a while until the advent of the internet. As is with almost everything else in our communication driven society, the internet redefined the reservation experience. Its redefinition is very specific however, it did not (at first) change the reservation procedure, you still needed to call, but it did allow for continually updated and user created Zagat guides. Users of the internet could use search engines (such as citysearch) to find restaurants in their neighborhood. What was greatly advanced by the internet was the reviewing system as well as the space for both reviews and more restaurants. Without the limitations of a physical book, websites could provide listings for as many restaurants as possible along with as many reviews as necessary.
Now we are up to where we were about ten years ago. This is when the next evolution in the reservation experience came…Open Table! According to Wikipedia, Open Table began in 1998 in San Fransisco as it is today, an online reservation service. I did not discover Open Table until much later and in New York City, I would say that I started using it around 2005 and within a year of my signing on it expanded in to St. Louis allowing me to access the same account in two states. What is completely new about the service is that it allows you to look at all the participating restaurants in any given neighborhood as well as their availability. With Open Table there is no more need to call each place down a list as you try and find one for your special occasion, they are all listed right in front of your eyes. Secondly what seals the deal is that with every free reservation you make you receive 100 points (100 points = $1.00). Eventually you can translate those points into a gift certificate at any Open Table restaurant. They have even started doing some promotional deals with restaurant to provide 1000 point reservations at less popular places or less popular times.
Now I know that there are those that I am sure have had troubles with this site or have desired restaurants or locations not supported by Open Table, but it has started something and the culture of reservations has forever been changed by it.
huysmans
washdcgirl