Resy Rivals OpenTable With Reserve Acquisition

Restaurant reservation service Resy has acquired rival Reserve in a bid to take on top dog OpenTable.

According to The New York Times, Resy did not disclose the financial details of the deal. With the addition of Reserve, which works with about 1,000 restaurants, most of them in Chicago, Washington and Boston, Resy will now serve about 4,000 restaurants in the United States. In total, Resy is used by 10,000 restaurants worldwide.

Ben Leventhal, one of Resy’s founders and its chief executive, revealed that the company’s revenue has doubled in each of the last four years. The service now seats about 1.4 million diners each week, and its critical no-show rate —restaurants lose money when people with reservations don’t turn up — averages just under 5 percent.

Leventhal added that Resy will also focus on helping restaurants market themselves more strategically. For example, if a restaurant has a long waiting list on a Saturday night, it can use Resy to attract diners on a slower night with the offer of a free drink. Or, if a customer is repeatedly relegated to the wait list, Resy can identify the pattern and alert the restaurant so the diner will finally get a reservation and, hopefully, become a regular.

“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” Leventhal said. “Our goal in five years is for every restaurant that works with Resy to not worry about closing.”

Resy users now include Delicious Hospitality Group (which runs Charlie Bird and Pasquale Jones in New York City), Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group and Hillstone Restaurant Group. Reserve’s clients include Major Food Group and Rick Bayless’s Frontera Restaurants.

Leventhal said most of Reserve’s staff of 34 people, who are based in Chicago and New York, will join Resy, which already has about 135 employees. And for now, Resy will continue to run Reserve’s service as it is.