When reserving a table, patrons have certain expectations.
Their desire is not just for a hassle-free booking process that minimizes human interaction from start to finish, but it also includes an anticipation for instant waitlists, evaluations, and endorsements from fellow clients, as well as an opportunity to express their personal preferences.
Restaurants now have a range of choices available to them when it comes to online reservation systems, which grant customers the flexibility to make a reservation at their leisure, without the need to contact the restaurant directly.
When reserving a table, customers nowadays have certain expectations.
In addition to seeking a streamlined reservation process with minimal interactions, customers anticipate access to instantaneous waitlists, peer feedback, and suggestions, as well as the ability to specify their personal preferences.
Restaurants have various possibilities to choose from as online restaurant reservation systems allow customers to make bookings at any time without having to contact them.
Here are the best restaurant reservation systems
Eat App
The Eat App is a user-friendly restaurant reservation system that operates on a cloud-based, cross-platform interface that allows for use on mobile phones, desktops, and iPads. Its table management and guest database and CRM features enhance day-to-day operations, reducing errors and optimizing profits. The app provides effortless floor plan customization and party size coordination, with an added widget to display real-time table availability for booking on social media profiles or websites.
Through Eat App, your restaurant can tap into a vast reservation network spanning popular platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Google, Tripadvisor, American Express, and more. This allows you to expand your reach and engage directly with customers on the platform of their preference, enhancing coverage and generating more bookings.
Resy
With its mobile booking and POS integration, Resy provides a comprehensive system for restaurant reservations and waitlisting that includes table management features. It also allows you to create a personalized floor plan that encompasses various seating options like bar seats, dining rooms, patios, etc. In addition, customers can use text to cancel or confirm their reservations, even if they’re running late.
After buying the software, you can share guest notes and preferences across all your eateries on any number of devices. With the Resy mobile app, patrons can provide their own information, including birthdays and dietary restrictions, removing the need for queries. You can customize notes to provide further details and adapt to your customers’ needs.
The integration of Resy restaurant booking with Facebook, Trip Advisor, Airbnb, and other channels provides a means by which your restaurant can be easily discovered and connected with by people.
Wisely
The marketing and operational system offered by Wisely encompasses several features such as reservations, table management, waitlist, marketing tools, and several others.
Similar to other vendors, you have the option to tailor your floor layout so that your servers can quickly identify which guests are seated where, their arrival time, and preferred orders.
Wisely, like other sophisticated systems, is capable of predicting the requirements of your guests by automatically incorporating information from your point-of-sale, public reviews, and other sources. This enables you to identify whether they have a specific inclination towards the atmosphere, cuisine, service style, and so on. Furthermore, with intelligent reservation and seating algorithms, you can design tailored strategies for special occurrences, routine tasting sessions, or festive periods.
In simple terms, Wisely empowers you to manage both the data and booking process, enabling you to establish direct connections with your clientele.
Tock
Tock was created to enhance restaurant profits by minimizing no-shows through a reservation system that enables restaurants to collect deposits and payments beforehand. The inclusion of automatic alerts and waitlists facilitates the replacement of last-minute cancellations with suitable customers, while pre-arrival questionnaires guarantee that you are informed about your guests’ preferences even before they arrive at the venue. The system also has an offline function, ensuring your restaurant’s seamless operation during unforeseen circumstances.
Tock provides restaurants with customizable guest notes and tags, as well as the integration of LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook profiles, to enhance their customer experience.
In essence, Tock equips you with all the necessary tools for creating an enchanting hospitality experience.
OpenTable
With OpenTable’s reservation software, you can easily manage shift summaries, automate reminders for reservations and improve turn times. By installing the software, your clients can view up-to-date availability and reserve a spot on your website. By categorizing tables, you can generate more business as customers can book seats at the patio, bar or other seating areas.
Similar to other systems, it has the capability to store valuable customer information, including previous interactions and visit summaries, in order to facilitate customized service provided by you and your team.
Apart from that, OpenTable provides integrations and access to 27 million diners through its extensive diner network to assist you in seating more guests and efficiently handling reservations.
Yelp Reservations
Yelp’s reservation software provides the basic capabilities that allow you to expand your customer base, provide precise waiting times, designate servers, and take reservations through your Yelp business page.
Yelp enables potential customers to easily check availability and make reservations with just a few simple clicks directly from your Yelp page. Furthermore, you can establish a reservation widget for your restaurant website to accept bookings. Unique settings enable you to monitor your floor and service operation from anywhere in the world on any device.
If you are currently using Yelp, this booking platform could be the ideal solution for transforming your engagement and visibility into monetary gain.
Table Agent
The objective of Table Agent is to provide restaurants with a cost-effective and user-friendly booking system in order to maximize their savings.
Table Agent prioritizes cost reduction and therefore provides a straightforward reservation system that can only be accessed online and has minimal updates.
Table Agent sets itself apart from other reservation management companies by utilizing a “listed” approach to reservation management. This approach is similar to a digitized version of a traditional reservation book. In addition to their list-based system, Table Agent provides an online booking widget for customers to make reservations.
Table Agent could be suitable for you if you’re seeking a basic booking system for better reservation management. Nonetheless, if you require a more advanced system, it might be worth exploring other alternatives.
Eveve
Eveve enables real-time bookings through a combination of live online booking pages and real-time availability. With table management and instant reservation capabilities, guests can easily book and maximize floor efficiency 24/7. A useful function called full availability provides alternative dates if desired ones are fully booked. These are all essential features of a good reservation system. Moreover, the customer database is automatically updated daily to provide insight into the demographics of guests. Additionally, remote access allows efficient monitoring of the restaurant from anywhere.
Tablein
Tablein equips small restaurants with contemporary features for enticing customers, managing seating capacity, supervising restaurant staff’s workload, and additional functions. The software automatically assigns tables and presents all bookings on an interactive plan or calendar once installed. Additionally, you can choose to notify customers of their upcoming reservations, effectively curbing no-shows.
Additionally, Tablein provides the advantage of utilizing marketing tools to maximize downtime, advertise events, and boost eatery profits. Tablein is an ideal solution for simplifying all reservation tasks with its simple booking tool, especially for small-scale eateries. It’s crucial to acknowledge that Tablein does not offer any form of table management or advanced attributes such as point of sale (POS) integration and server management. This feature differentiation sets it apart from the other systems mentioned in this post.
BONUS: Location discovery and restaurant rating APIs
Searching for a dining spot can be simplified when considering two factors: proximity and rating. With the help of APIs, creating location-specific applications paired with user feedback is now more achievable. Incorporating such information into your travel or rental platform could enhance your website or mobile app by providing restaurant recommendations for specific regions to your visitors.
The major players in terms of location and rating include renowned brands like Google Places, Foursquare, Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Zomato’s Foodie Index.
Google Places API
Prior to the creation of Google Places, mobile app location services solely relied on longitude and latitude. Presently, the Places API utilizes a fundamental set of coordinates.
- searches restaurants in over 100 different categories,
- provides detailed info along with reviews and photos from the Google Places database, and
- returns suggested queries.
By utilizing the API, users can detect nearby restaurants through GPS and incorporate a function to do so.
Foursquare API
Another option for discovering nearby locations is the Foursquare Places API. This tool has the capability to support location-based experiences on your website or app through:
- enabling location search and sharing,
- providing details about a restaurant,
- giving access to a number of place attributes, and
- retrieving photos, tips, and reviews posted on Foursquare by customers.
In order to begin, you must establish a developer account on Foursquare.
Foursquare also provides the following products, apart from the API.
The Pilgrim software development kit enables users to receive geo-aware content that is relevant to their context through its location-awareness engine.
Through the use of Snap-to-Place technology, Places Database identifies and evaluates 105 million locations worldwide based on a unique ten-point grading system and popularity ratings, matching physical sites with significant nearby venues.
Yelp Fusion API
One impressive tool highlighted earlier is Yelp Fusion AP I, which offers a user-friendly interface and formidable capabilities for obtaining top-notch reviews and local content from 32 different countries. Its various features incorporate:
- search by keyword, main business attributes (location, category, open hours, price level, phone number), and delivery support;
- autocomplete suggestions; and
- retrieval of detailed restaurant content, i.e. photos, price levels, hours of operation, and Yelp rating (Yelp sorts reviews by recency, votes, users you follow, and other review quality factors).
Trulia, a real estate website, serves as a good illustration of how integrating the Yelp API can enhance the platform’s functionality. By incorporating the feature, Trulia’s maps enable users to view cafes, coffee shops, and pubs in the vicinity, thereby influencing their home search process.
If the standard API endpoints do not align with your requirements, you have the option to adjust them utilizing Yelp’s GraphQL API, which permits the customization of requests to suit particular use cases. Additionally, if you don’t need all the data for your use case, GraphQL can hasten your requests by reducing the server-side work required to complete them. Nonetheless, GraphQL is currently limited to 10,000 queries per day while it remains in beta.
TripAdvisor Content API
There are three main types of place-of-interest (POI) on TripAdvisor, and restaurants fall under one of these. Within the category of restaurants, there are three subcategories: sit down, bakery, and fast food.
In addition to name and address, the TripAdvisor Content API enables users to retrieve the following information related to restaurants.
- overall bubble rating – a summary of your ratings and reviews using the 1 (terrible) to 5 (excellent) rating scale;
- subratings measured against a number of subcategories: food, service, value, and atmosphere;
- popularity ranking – a popularity index ranking on TripAdvisor, which compares restaurants within the same destination based on their popularity. It’s measured by the quality, quantity, and recency of their review content on TripAdvisor;
- the number of reviews the rating is based on;
- awards: Travelers’ Choice and Certificate of Excellence;
- the number of traveler photos for this restaurant published on TripAdvisor;
- a localized relative price level; and
- restaurant cuisine type.
In order to utilize the TripAdvisor API, you must supply your authentication information and keep in mind the set restrictions: a maximum of 10,000 API requests per day and an upper limit of 50 requests per second. The monthly cost is $89. It is important to also acknowledge that the amount of API keys available is restricted and they are not obtainable for the intention of data analysis, scholarly research or any use that is not connected to a travel website or application that interacts with individual consumers (B2C).
Which API to connect to?
Depending on the system’s scope, integrating with an API can require a significant investment of time and money. Even though we have touched on various aspects, you might still be wondering which API would be most suitable for your situation.
Your business needs, existing resources, and development goals are key factors in determining which option is best. To assist with your decision-making, we offer the following suggestions.
When dealing with Geography, ensure that the information you associate with is appropriate for the specific region you are targeting. Otherwise, it will not be beneficial. For instance, suppose it pertains to a location discovery API. In that case, you must verify if it detects your exact location. If it’s an order and delivery API, ensure it functions correctly with restaurants in your geographical vicinity.
Do all the features you require exist in this API’s functionality? Narrow down your choices by filtering based on the must-have features.
It’s important to be aware of request limits when using an API to avoid surpassing its maximum capacity, which could result in being expelled from the system. Some companies restrict calls in the midst of important actions due to hosting performance limitations. On the other hand, a beneficial method is to inform users of the number of calls remaining with each call made, making it easier to develop a dependable and effective API service.
Having a dependable support system and engaged community is crucial. In case of any difficulties, it is important to have someone who can attend to your inquiries. Thus, it is highly advantageous for API providers to provide reliable customer support and have a dynamic community. Moreover, it is preferable if the organization utilizes its API in its own products. This increases the likelihood of the API being well-supported and providing ample options.
Choose an API with restricted access that requires authentication from your end instead of being open to anyone else.
For a seamless integration, ensure that the API you use follows the naming and method conventions of your platform’s business logic.
Consider the reputation of the API provider as your business name will be associated with its customers. As a result, their reputation may impact your business positively or negatively.
