People Are Freaking Out About A Startup That Snags Restaurant Reservations And Sells Them
Here's how ReservationHop works: The company makes reservations at popular restaurants in San Francisco. These reservations are available to browse on ReservationHop's website.
If you see a restaurant you like, you can claim it for a price. The prices seem to range between $5 and $10 based on the website's current offerings. The app then gives you a name to say at the door, making it look like you made the reservation yourself.
So why are people upset about it? People seem to generally believe that the idea is unfair and could potentially create unnecessary competition for those who want to make reservations the traditional way.
The service sparked a ton of negative Twitter reactions last night:
To be clear, there are other apps that sell restaurant reservations in advance. The problem with ReservationHop, however, is that it doesn't work with the restaurants it makes reservations for like Table8 does. It appears ReservationHop just calls a bunch of restaurants, makes reservations, and then tries to sell them.
There are also a handful of people that seem to like the idea behind ReservationHop. One Twitter user even called it "genius."
ReservationHop is far from being the first service to take this type of approach. In fact, San Fransisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera recently ordered paid parking app MoneyParking to shut down its service. The app allows drivers to sell their parking spots to other drivers once they exit.