Is OpenTable Effective for restaurant owners?

From this consumer's standpoint, Open Table is easier on the eyes.

Mark,

Thanks for asking about the trend in our online reservations. I just pulled the data to compare, and so far we are at the same number of online reservations per month as we were with OT (erie, I know). While users may not be as familiar with Blue Skies yet, it is still a fairly new system. Financially, it made sense for us to change. We also like the feature that allows customers to make reservations from our Face Book page.

As far as having a reservation system that promotes us, we believe that there are numerous ways for customers to find us without being on the OT website.

Obviously this system may not be for everyone, simply the right choice for us.

My question is, are people booking online through a link on your website or finding you through a 2nd party? I don't use a reservation site to find restaurants, but I use them when directed from the restaurants site to make a reservation. If people are making reservations through the restaurants site it probably doesn't matter which reservation system it is using.

My question is, are people booking online through a link on your website or finding you through a 2nd party? I don't use a reservation site to find restaurants, but I use them when directed from the restaurants site to make a reservation. If people are making reservations through the restaurants site it probably doesn't matter which reservation system it is using.

The advantage of OpenTable is that it allows for both. People can locate the restaurant and reviews of it through OpenTable, or the can make the reservation through OpenTable from the restaurant's website.

I believe that with BlueSkies, it only provides the latter; that is, I can't go to BlueSkies and find the restaurant (or reviews, or other restaurants with similar available seating times).

i <3 opentable, both for the ease of managing an evenings reservations and for the customer database.

As a consumer, I like Open Table a lot. I wish more restaurants were on it, although the list is pretty good already. I use it on my iPhone.

My experience with open table has been positive.
From a business side it allows a big picture view that is pretty much flawless.
It prevents you from overbooking and allows an accurate hat count.
The fee charged per head seems negligible given the amount of traffic directed towards your business.
I would give it a resounding yeah - give it a try.