Why Getting A Restaurant Reservation In Tampa Can Be Challenging
Have you noticed lately that you really have to plan things out in advance if you are wanting to enjoy a night out of fine dining in Tampa?
I was chatting with my friend Meredith from our sister station, Wild 94.1. We’ve both realized how difficult it is to book reservations in Tampa and specifically, how far in advance you have to plan.
Well, she did a little investigating and found out that there is a website that buys up reservations at fine-dining establishments around the Tampa area and then holds them so that they can sell them. this operation is separate and unrelated to these restaurants. In other words, the restaurants are not getting any side action from this particular website.
Meredith looked into how this has been happening at Bern’s, for example. You can book a Bern’s res 60 day out, and booking opens at 12:00 A.M. You used to be able to book a couple of weeks out, but now you have to book months ahead of when you want to dine. Supposedly, bots were buying up these reservations.
Here’s where things get funky. The website, AppointmentTrader.com, was selling reservations to Bern’s Steak House for $160 a night or more. Crazy!
AppointmentTrader.com put out a press release that said: “Their website was built to make it easier for consumers to trade unused restaurant reservations, theme park tickets or government appointments and allow other consumers to get a reservation or appointment at the place and time they need it.”
Bern’s representation responded as follows: “We take this matter very seriously. As such, added measures have been taken with our reservation software company, Open Table, that is actively investigating AppointmentTrader.com with both their fraud and legal teams to ensure that our reservation process is not misrepresented or compromised by any computer-generated agents / bots.”
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