The Green Fairy's OpenTable

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At Le Zinc on Capitol Hill, the green fairy comes to life under the watchful eye of bar manager Andy McClellan. Open barely a month, it's going gangbusters.

Le Zinc Bistro, 1449 E. Pine, Seattle, 206-257-4151  Le Zinc on Urbanspoon

Now, what's this we hear, that our friends at Urbanspoon have sold off their Rezbook business? Sold it to arch-nemesis OpenTable? C'mon, Urbanspoon! Surely you remember why you started Rezbook in the first place, because OpenTable is a hated, predatory service that requires restaurants to "rent" equipment and use proprietary software, that it might seem all warm and fuzzy until the bill comes at the end of the month and the restaurant finds, g-gulp, that those reservation fees (about $10 for a four-top) add up to a hefty chunk of change. It's not just unsophisticated mom & pop restaurants that resent OpenTable (but fear that dropping the service will cost them business); top-tier dinner houses are also resentful because OpenTable's business model depends on taking the restaurant itself (any restaurant) out of the customer relationship. It's OpenTable that's calling the shots, with loyalty points and newsletters and the lure of special deals.

Every major restaurant nonetheless feels compelled to use OpenTable, from tiny neighborhood spots like Bistro Turkuaz in Madrona to chronically empty joints like Fumaça in Belltown. Prestigious houses like Canlis and the Space Needle are on the list. Some 250 in Seattle alone. Even Le Zinc.

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This page contains a single entry by Cornichon published on August 1, 2013 11:00 AM.

The Old Sage opens was the previous entry in this blog.

Private equity, unfunded liabilities & other trivia is the next entry in this blog.

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