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We spent a night out on the town with Tablelist, the app that can get you into your city's hottest clubs

We spent a night out on the town with Tablelist, the app that can get you into your city's hottest clubs

Jung started the company when he realized the nightlife industry was woefully behind in its technology. Reservations for hotels, cars, flights, restaurants — these could all be made at the tap of a finger. But clubbing? Not so easy.

Step one: sign up and select your location. Tablelist currently operates in New York City, Boston, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Miami, San Francisco, and Washington, DC, with more locations slated to pop up this year.

In December, they sold $1 million in nightclub tables across all markets. Each month, between five and ten thousand users log on and book tables with the app, according to Jung.

And people, Jung knew, were dropping a lot of cash every night on their boozy activities.

The biggest spenders were Miami and Las Vegas customers, who shell out upwards of $2,000 on average for a table, while in Boston, that number shrinks to $500 for a night out.

Step two: choose your club. In New York, the app has worked deals with all of the big names in nightlife, meaning that pretty much any destination you have in mind is available for the right price; 38 venues are listed for the booking here.

The app picks up a 10-20% commission on a booking, similar to the margins that a nightclub promoter will make. But instead of doing everything on the fly like a promoter, Tablelist has a data and technology focus to help venues maximize their sales, while ensuring customers have a seamless experience.

The app provides helpful info about each venue, including a description of the scene, the music, and who you're likely to find on a given night.

"We cater to the whole spectrum," Jung said. "It's the mass prestige." Whether you're just looking to gain entry to a club or you're ready to spend big on renting out a venue — one customer dropped $30,000 on a Miami nightclub experience to see Calvin Harris perform last year — Tablelist has a range of options to fit your tastes.

Most importantly, the app gives you a price breakdown. Usually, table bookings at nightclubs are a shadowy affair, with menus provided only after you agree to a minimum spend with a club manager at the door. That spend can vary greatly, depending on your group and the club's popularity that night.

But with Tablelist, everything is written out in advance. For instance, at the Meatpacking venue 1Oak, you can get a VIP table for up to 8 people for $3,000.

We checked other clubs on the app and saw that you can get the same type of table for $2,500 at comparable venues.

Step three: choose your alcohol. Every bottle available at the venue is listed with its price.

Dom Perignon will run generally run you $1,100 a pop; a bottle of Grey Goose goes for $625. You can pre-select your bottles on the app, ensuring you lock in your price.

The final step: choose an arrival time, and book. You can either pay with a card you can connect to the app, or later, at the venue. You can even split the fare, like you would with an Uber ride.

Note: This is just an example of what you could expect to spend on bottle service, not our actual tab. Tablelist treated us to drinks for the night.

For our test run, we chose to check out Tao Downtown.

Tao is a mainstay in New York City's upscale nightlife. It's a brick-walled, cavernous space with soaring ceilings, wild art, and plenty of leather banquettes for bottle service.

One more nifty feature in the Tablelist app: an integration with ride-hailing service Uber. You can order your car — whatever kind you want — right from the app, with price estimates to your destination.

Meet my team. I brought about a half-dozen friends to Tao, and more joined over the course of the evening. None of us are strangers to the club scene; I'd say we're pretty discerning party people, and have high standards when it comes to our nights on the town.

Our reservation was for 11:45 p.m., but we were about 30 minutes late. I boldly went straight up to the bouncer manning the velvet rope. Admittedly, there wasn't much of a line so early in the evening, but any velvet rope experience can test your confidence.

As soon as I gave my name, we were whisked past the rope and inside.

A Tao representative guided us down a hall to the main club floor. There, a hostess escorted us to a corner table and introduced us to our waitress for the night. It was the easiest entrance I'd ever had to a nightclub; often, I'll have to wait for a friend to come out, or take the time to negotiate with a manager before being allowed in.

"There are better deals on Tablelist than directly through the door," Jung said.

Our waitress offered us menus and began setting up. As we had not pre-selected our alcohol choices, we debated the merits of champagne vs. tequila while our ice bucket and mixers were set before us.

We decided on a vodka and tequila combo. Vodka is the drink of choice for Tablelist users; Jung says 90% of his bookings order it.

The waitress poured our drinks for us and checked in regularly, even bringing sparklers with one of our bottles.

As the night wore on, the space filled with denizens of the clubbing world: women dressed up in vertiginous heels and mini skirts (despite the freezing temperatures outside); men in slicked-back hair.

And my group? We started having fun — especially when our sparklers arrived.

Tablelist's own New York City manager, Alex Masnyk, also came by to check in on us.

A nightlife veteran, he has made it his priority to maintain strong relationships with all the venues on the Tablelist roster, ensuring that customers are given proper treatment. In every city, Tablelist has local staff on hand.

It was a refreshing experience to have my own table. Although I've been a guest at other friends' tables before, owning the table was a perk. I liked knowing the club was looking out for me, and would make sure that my group and I had a good time.

With Tablelist, I was confident that my squad would have a space to call our own. Plus, I knew exactly what I was paying for.

Without Tablelist, I would have called the club and tried to make a reservation the old-fashioned way, or looked for a promoter to bring me in for free — which means my guy friends would, unfortunately, be left out in the cold.

With a reservation all taken care of, those velvet ropes were no problem — for me or any of my entourage.

Verdict: if you want to spend a night at a club — and are ready to pay the steep price of bottle service —then Tablelist is definitely the easiest way to make it happen.