Appointment Trader Promises Reservations at NYC’s Hottest Restaurants

This may sound like scalping, which is illegal in many states. New York’s scalping law is particularly strict, but several lawyers said its language applies only to tickets, mostly in the sports and entertainment industries.

Last month, Yoshino, a New York sushi restaurant, alleged that someone was scalping its Tock reservations. And small groups like #FreeRezy and the Reddit subgroup r/FoodNYC have also posted reservations for the taking.

Apps similar to Appointment Trader, like Dorsia, promise to give their paying members access to exclusive reservations at restaurants they partner with. In 2014, a similar, short-lived service called ReservationHop drew a public outcry. Appointment Trader has drawn similar online criticism, but traditional reservation platforms have also been called out as contributing to this problem.

Resy specifies in fine print that users can’t sell or trade their reservations.

“Restaurants tell us that third parties who trade or monetize reservations by reselling them undermine the success of their businesses, and that Resy reservations obtained on third-party sites and accounts often lead to significant no-shows and late cancellations,” a spokeswoman for Resy said.

Nick Kokonas, the former chief executive of Tock and an owner of Alinea Restaurant in Chicago, threatened to sue Appointment Trader when it first came on the scene, but Tock’s current chief executive, Matthew Tucker, said the company is not pursuing a lawsuit and doesn’t view Appointment Trader as competition.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/12/dining/appointment-trader-nyc-restaurant-reservations.html