6 ms·

Tock's business model is about people who make reservations and don't show up (or try to resell the reservations, etc), which is a huge issue for restaurants.

Tock's business model is about people who make reservations and don't show up (or try to resell the reservations, etc), which is a huge issue for restaurants. It's also about who the relationship is with. OpenTable, as you can see, believes the relationship is between you and OpenTable. Tock generally believes it is between you and the restaurant. It's not at all about whether you can pay or not.

lisper 8y ago
You must not have read my comment all the way through, because I explicitly said: "I get that restaurants have to protect themselves against no-shows, and I have no problem handing over a credit card number so that they can charge a no-show fee." > It's not at all about whether you can pay or not. I never said it was.
- DannyBee 8y ago
  I did read your comment. I just found it mostly not worth responding to your suggestion, honestly. But let's do it anyway. ""I get that restaurants have to protect themselves against no-shows, and I have no problem handing over a credit card number so that they can charge a no-show fee." " Did you ever consider this may not be at all a viable product model, given it's been tried and failed miserably? IE your solution may not be a solution that works. If your level of trust is that you expect restaurants to cut corners if you pay up front, i guess i'd suggest not letting other human beings prepare food for you, since they already paid in advance for the ingredients, and so they already have an incentive to cut corners in your model regardless of Tock or not. Put another way, before you eat, you have already cost them money whether you eat there or not, and whether you use Tock or not. Additionally, basically all menus are fixed price and the tips don't got to the restaurant. So there is no reason people will cut corners more due to tock.
  - lisper 8y ago
    > it's been tried and failed miserably That's news to me. Restaurants that I eat at do this all the time. Reference? (I have a very hard time believing that now-show fees fail while pay-up-front succeeds. It makes no sense that consumers would accept the latter but not the former.)
    - tptacek 8y ago
      You are probably not eating at the kinds of restaurants that are Tock's mainstay. In San Francisco, that's places like Atelier Crenn and Saison. A no-show at Alinea or Crenn is not the same thing as a no-show at The Publican or Zuni Cafe. They're all great restaurants, but The Publican and Zuni will chug along just fine with no-shows, while Alinea has every single 4-top in the place intricately planned out a week in advance. Not all the restaurants on Tock are pre-paid, for whatever that's worth to you.
      - lisper 8y ago
        LOL. We've eaten at every 3-star Michelin restaurant in the Bay Area (we did Meadowood before they signed on to Tock) and four of the 3-stars in NYC (one of them lost a star since we were there). We're regulars at Manresa. We've eaten at four of the six two-stars in the BA (we won't do Atelier Crenn because Tock). (BTW, one of the two-stars was absolutely horrible. We didn't walk out, but we would never go back.) We ate at and fell in love with Gabriel Kreuther just before they received their second star, and at Meadowood just after they got their third one. We've been doing this for a long time. Michelin doesn't give stars to LA restaurants any more, but when we lived there we were regulars at Patina, Spago and Providence (and the Water Grill before the chef quit to go to Providence). So yeah, I'm pretty sure we are solidly in Tock's target audience. > Not all the restaurants on Tock are pre-paid, for whatever that's worth to you. Not even FaceBook is 100% evil.
        tptacek 8y ago
        I deliberately chose the restaurant comparisons I did to avoid this bogus response. It's not my contention that you're unfamiliar with fine dining. I'm saying something different, and if you reread my comment, I think you may find it. A good clue that your response is out of line is that you started it with "LOL". I do that too, all the time (more often, the single-word sentence "What."), and have learned to notice it as a tell that I'm writing something I'm not going to be happy having said later. The edits I make when that happens always improve my writing.

lisper 8y ago

You must not have read my comment all the way through, because I explicitly said: "I get that restaurants have to protect themselves against no-shows, and I have no problem handing over a credit card number so that they can charge a no-show fee." > It's not at all about whether you can pay or not. I never said it was.

DannyBee 8y ago
I did read your comment. I just found it mostly not worth responding to your suggestion, honestly. But let's do it anyway. ""I get that restaurants have to protect themselves against no-shows, and I have no problem handing over a credit card number so that they can charge a no-show fee." " Did you ever consider this may not be at all a viable product model, given it's been tried and failed miserably? IE your solution may not be a solution that works. If your level of trust is that you expect restaurants to cut corners if you pay up front, i guess i'd suggest not letting other human beings prepare food for you, since they already paid in advance for the ingredients, and so they already have an incentive to cut corners in your model regardless of Tock or not. Put another way, before you eat, you have already cost them money whether you eat there or not, and whether you use Tock or not. Additionally, basically all menus are fixed price and the tips don't got to the restaurant. So there is no reason people will cut corners more due to tock.
- lisper 8y ago
  > it's been tried and failed miserably That's news to me. Restaurants that I eat at do this all the time. Reference? (I have a very hard time believing that now-show fees fail while pay-up-front succeeds. It makes no sense that consumers would accept the latter but not the former.)
  - tptacek 8y ago
    You are probably not eating at the kinds of restaurants that are Tock's mainstay. In San Francisco, that's places like Atelier Crenn and Saison. A no-show at Alinea or Crenn is not the same thing as a no-show at The Publican or Zuni Cafe. They're all great restaurants, but The Publican and Zuni will chug along just fine with no-shows, while Alinea has every single 4-top in the place intricately planned out a week in advance. Not all the restaurants on Tock are pre-paid, for whatever that's worth to you.
    - lisper 8y ago
      LOL. We've eaten at every 3-star Michelin restaurant in the Bay Area (we did Meadowood before they signed on to Tock) and four of the 3-stars in NYC (one of them lost a star since we were there). We're regulars at Manresa. We've eaten at four of the six two-stars in the BA (we won't do Atelier Crenn because Tock). (BTW, one of the two-stars was absolutely horrible. We didn't walk out, but we would never go back.) We ate at and fell in love with Gabriel Kreuther just before they received their second star, and at Meadowood just after they got their third one. We've been doing this for a long time. Michelin doesn't give stars to LA restaurants any more, but when we lived there we were regulars at Patina, Spago and Providence (and the Water Grill before the chef quit to go to Providence). So yeah, I'm pretty sure we are solidly in Tock's target audience. > Not all the restaurants on Tock are pre-paid, for whatever that's worth to you. Not even FaceBook is 100% evil.
      - tptacek 8y ago
        I deliberately chose the restaurant comparisons I did to avoid this bogus response. It's not my contention that you're unfamiliar with fine dining. I'm saying something different, and if you reread my comment, I think you may find it. A good clue that your response is out of line is that you started it with "LOL". I do that too, all the time (more often, the single-word sentence "What."), and have learned to notice it as a tell that I'm writing something I'm not going to be happy having said later. The edits I make when that happens always improve my writing.