OpenTable for Restaurants

The new profile option is a lot. All of that information was already accessible in different tabs, having it in one page, especially on a phone is far too much. There is a setting to disable the new options, however as of 2 days ago it no longer changes anything on iPhone. Toggled on or off nothing changes.

Phone app is very useful, but misses some of the functionality of the full version. It would be useful if it could access the entire guest database, if it would stop signing me out, and if it could update Table status in real time. I do really appreciate the new table view mode, though I wish the time block view was also accessible via mobile, as when guests call me from home looking to reserve when the “book” is “full”, it’s an easier way to see where I might have space to accommodate them. Some other things, just for the developers, it would be useful to have the program be able to have different assumed turn times for different parts of the day (ex. 5PM diners tend to move faster than 7PM diners in this area), or to have certain tables assigned to certain times consistently (like when you have a table for 10 that you want to use both early in the night or late in the night, but don’t want it booked by the first group that grabs it at 6:30PM). I could go on for hours about table time maximization. Feel free to contact me devs.

POV: employee in the restaurant industry. I believe OpenTable should implement a policy to prevent users from making multiple reservations at different restaurants for the same day. As a reservation system designed for scheduling purposes, it relies on accurate data regarding the number of covers or reservations for each evening. Allowing users to make multiple reservations and then cancel once they decide where to dine adversely affects other businesses. This practice not only disrupts labor planning but also impacts the morale of restaurant staff. Implementing measures to discourage such behavior would contribute to a more fair and efficient reservation system for both users and establishments. With the right programming this is highly achievable.

I have been able to use every table management system out there. OpenTable is smooth and they have amazing support. I have seamless service front of house, and it 'does the thinking' on wait times for new hosts who might not feel confident offering their own estimates. I have been able to advertise my happy hour, special events and dinners, securing more diners with the multiple clever email campaigns that automatically run. We do occasionally use their marketing on their website, and have been seeing great results on that. By comparison, we are securing more diners YTD than last year

It’s so frustrating when we are near, at or over capacity with reservations that I do not have control of my own restaurant. I need the ability to turn on and off reservations regardless if it’s a LIVE shift or not with this application. Sadly, this option was available to us, so it’s possible to provide us this tool that prevents overbooking and bad reviews, unsure why it was removed. Also, I keep getting bumped, having to login multiple times per day, mostly at inopportune times. This is a recent development more frequent in the last month. Equally frustrating. Since we pay a very high price to have OT as our reservations partner, they should provide us with reliable tools to respond in real time to current conditions that can adversely impact our guests.

The new format when recieving notifications is not an improvement. The way the notifications used to come up clearly showed the date of the reservation. Now with the new format it shows a time only. When you click on the time it's shows you the date however it's one extra step we didn't need. When you click the time and it brings you to the day it's very easy with a slip of a finger to adjust someone's time of reservation without realizing you do it. I actually hate this new notification page! Especially when getting notifications on your phone. Would love to bring back the old format.

The timeline view and the guest book are key features in the OS version that should be a part of this platform. Another helpful feature that isn’t on either is a calendar view that shows nightly cover breakdowns to see past and future trends (resy has this).

If you are a restaurant owner or management. Even if you're a host in a restaurant. Your job is made easier by using this app. It. Is. Amazing. It does so much work for you it's incredibly easy to use. What and how did we do things like take reservations and such before this amazing app came to be!!?? How could anyone leave one star reviews on this is beyond me!? Anything short of 4 or 5 stars and I'm thinking you're either dumb. Or have no clue about the efficiency this app brings to your everyday life working in a restaurant.

the new review adds way too much information and makes training new employees difficult. the old software was much easer to use and didn't have the little edit emoticon next to names, numbers, emails, companies, etc. the font is also much smaller which is hard to read for my older coworkers.

20 minutes of LIVE chat (which I normally absolutely refuse to bother with) yielded the response that "it's not a problem on our end so it must be your browser or your computer." Suggestion: uninstall chrome, and then restart. Given that I'm not having any issues with any other site, I have a feeling there is a technical disconnect here. Regardless, don't waste your time!

The app hardly ever updates, which makes it no use to me. When you’ve been tracking reservations all day from your phone, but come to find the guest count has doubled when you get to the restaurant, it’s pretty annoying.

Latest version refreshes in the middle of tasks like moving reservations or writing notes and frequently freezes. Keep hoping for an update but none so far have fixed these issues. For the fees paid this should be better.

As many others have said, the app doesn’t update on my phone which defeats the purpose of trying to be mobile. There are some other things about the app that I have concerns and preferences about but priorities. We need to to do the basic functions first.

For the last 2-3 weeks the app doesn’t update in real time. Cannot see when tables are seated on the floor plan. Freezes when you try to click on a reservation. Newest update made it even more glitchy than before, unfortunately.

The new system is nice, but everything is gray and too small. The number of guests for each party should be bigger, bolder and red! The system on the ipad is different than the system in the office computer which is very confusing for the staff. Also, the daily notes used to pop up immediately. Now, we have to search for the notes. I think the designers of the system should go back to the drawing board and help he restaurants have a better, clearer system since it’s already very expensive

Maybe my anger is directed in the wrong place but Is really like to know how a person who made a reservation but never dined can leave a review.

Won’t update on phone so you have no idea what reservations look like until you’re actually there at the restaurant.

My phone app never updates anymore. I have to delete and redownload the entire app if I want an update on the info. Very disappointing

I am evaluation OPENTable with the free version. It works on the iphones but not on iPads. It doesnot find the restaurant upon signing makes it hard to evaluate the product. Is this intentional bugs???

I think it is highly unreasonable the guests are allowed to leave anonymous reviews! To have people just slam you with untrue reviews is not fair or good for the business!

Doesn’t update and have to physically refresh

Seating parties has become more difficult, my guest time spent at the host stand has nearly tripled.

It’s been so annoying that every day I have issues with OT, is not updating on my iPhone

The joke app of the modern century in hospitality To redesign your floor plan you’ll need a phone call from President Nixon

I used this system for Easter and it was a nightmare. It takes too many steps to do simple things like seating guests. I think some of the old open tables good points can be brought over to the new version. Have drag and hold easy switch floors plan tabs. Now you have to click each floor plan individually instead of dragging ur finger and holding. Then it automatically would switch for you. Before I could drag and drop to seat in the patio and bar area. Now I have to “preassign” then seat. In a rush this takes too long. Another thing is get rid of all the different tabs such as seated, removed, etc. Make it a simple list with icons for canceled, seated etc. If you are going to have the reservation list page at least keep it in 1 row with notes showing beside each reservation instead of having to individually click each one to see what’s in their notes. I also called about an issue with making floor plans via the app and safari. It won’t allow me to copy or create a new floor plan. Lastly I noticed you can’t simply block future date reservations using the app without using safari. You can only do the current working shift.

Our restaurant switched over to Guest Center last summer and we have had continuous problems with the system. It seems great with all of the “improvements” it tries to make, however we have encountered countless glitches (most of which just so happen to occur in the middle of our very busy dinner rushes!). As a hostess (being the one that uses the system most frequently) I would consider this update a down grade. The system requires multiple refreshes just to get it back to how the screen should look. It hides reservations from initial view, “deletes guest history”-as in it won’t show a guest’s history and then when I add the guest back in, it will sync with it’s old information, so the information was in there all along. The reservation list glitches and makes it so that you cannot drag the reservations, you have to search it in the bar and then drag it. Overall, with all the issues we have been having, it makes it very difficult to use this system on busy nights, which is just about every night. Please fix these issues soon!!

This takes way longer and twice as many key strokes than the old/original version on a computer; not the app version. This is glitchy and we have found several times that the information overlaps other guest information, guest visits wrong from one visit to the next, have called the help desk for major issues and have been told that the issues we have only happen to 3% of the OpenTable community. Issues reported were never resolved even months later. Feedback option seems to go nowhere as none of the issues are ever fixed. Look into a different program and dump OpenTable Guest Center. I think they made a deal with Apple, so they don’t have to pay for equipment anymore. Then they hired a bunch of young app designers who have zero restaurant experience to develop this and save money. Oh, and you will need to buy new iPads every 4 years or so. What a great deal between OT & Apple!

Have been visiting this venue a couple of times per month for several years. Love the ambience, like the food (although not always consistent), and the staff are always pleasant but some would benefit from additional training, e.g., do not clear table until all guests have finished their meal. Their corn chowder is truly divine, however, is not served with accompanying bread or crackers sans paying extra. The Harvest Salad is exquisite and their variety of lemonades is interesting and each is refreshing. No venue is perfect, however with attention to a few details, Tonto Bar and Grill could come pretty close.

I am a hostess and a very very busy restaurant . One of the top rated in the country. Love love this system . So far my only concerns would be that if I could have access to the floor plan on my phone so I can set up the servers section before hand, assign tables or even see what tables reservations are assigned to. Also would love if some of the tags had Icons matching/fitting what it stands for . Example : “business meeting”should have a “brief case”💼 logo or “graduation”should have a graduation cap or graduate wearing a cap 🎓👨🏾‍🎓👩🏽‍🎓logo etc... over all everything else works great.

The app is working OK on my phone, but all it shows is the list of reservations. I am able to add reservations, but I wasn’t able to click off the text notification to the patron like I can on my iPad and laptop. The biggest issue is that I can’t see the table layout, only the reservation list, which renders this app only partially useful.

Our restaurant uses this app for our hosts, and we think it would be incredibly useful if a feature would be implemented that hosts could leave notes. Such as where high chairs were being used or if a table is all adults/children. This feature would definitely bump our rating up to 5 stars!

The new color scheme makes everything blend together. It is all black and gray and they removed the feature allowing table updates such as "check dropped". The list is a nice addition but I don't like how it has taken the spot of "floor plan". Ideally I would like to see customer customization of these things. Open table is a great service but this update was too dramatic.

Really enjoy using this program, but it would be even better if I was able to see the floor plan on my phone. Why? It allows to set up waiters sections before I even have to step foot inside the restaurant. This way, when it’s really busy summer time, the waiters will know beforehand what stations they all will have (especially during a busy season)

Would like to have different tags for different requests. All in all, the more you know how to use the more beneficial. But the table tag is used for too many different tags. Would like more options there.

Overall, this app is nice and useful to have on my phone. I am a hostess at a hibachi style restaurant and I would love to see the floor plan integrated into the phone version of this app so I could assign tables to the servers before getting to the restaurant and so that the hostesses could take their phones into the dining area to do updates while the other hostess is using the iPad up front.

After logged me out from my phone the app says can’t recognize my user and password, I deleted the app and downloaded again and again and still can’t get in! This problem is in my phone cause I can use the app in my computer without any issue!

The system is great! If we could get the cover count feature that the iPhones have for our iPads that would be great. Also, if we could be able to drag and drop tables to move them around on the floor plan that would be fantastic!!

Update: came back to add how bad this app is compared to Resy. We’re about to switch over to Resy due to the limited functionality of not only the iPad app, but the iPhone app. It’s annoying that I can only have limited control on my phone when it’s just a little bit smaller than an iPad.

I'm a manager at a restaurant so I am constantly checking the reservations and I also make reservations on my phone for other guests. However, lately it just keeps having cliches!! The app will operate for about 10 seconds before it freezes. Please fix this!!!

We’re really enjoying using the program ,however it will be great if we could customize Text msg As well , be able to drag and drop reservations to move them around.

In a recent update you got rid of the ability to add a reservation that has “arrived” to the waitlist. Please bring back that feature or at least make it a option that can be toggled on or off.

I open this app almost 100 times a day! The control and info from anywhere, it’s exciting to see the restaurant fill up and get guest notes at my finger tips

It won’t focus on a particular area. Instead it focus’ within a 75 mile radius. Very frustrating. OT is likely being payed by how many times it recommends a restaurant whether it’s in your area or not.

I am the GM of a very intimate speakeasy. We need to reassign tables frequently to best accommodate reservations which makes ability to see the floor plan when assigning tables very important. The fact that the floor plan view isn’t available via the iPhone app is very frustrating.

The advertised new rate is only for three months, but they won’t tell you that until you’re four months in and your costs skyrocket to 3x more than you thought you would be paying, then they trap you in a contract. All because they hid the real rate in the EULA so deep you’d never find it.

Most recent app update is doubling up reservations for the same customers which do not appear on guestcenter online, mornin our tablet (which hasn’t been updated).

Constantly freezes and loses reservations, as a hostess for a high volume restaurant this gets incredibly frustrating. We take reservations over the phone and constantly have to put guests on hold while we wait for the system to unfreeze

Great app but needs a feature where you can mark that a party is set up and ready to be seated !!

Garbage system, old open table was very simple and user friendly for all users. New system makes you believe that this was written by a person who has never worked in a restaurant. Shameful that we have no choice but to use this inferior product and have to pay for it.

It won’t let you look at a shift other than the current one for more than ten seconds. It’s infuriating when trying to go through a plan the flow of a dinner shift during the day when you get three reservations down and it switches back to lunch. Please fix.