OpenTable is an onlinerestaurant-reservationservice company founded by Chuck Templeton on 2 July 1998 and is based in San Francisco, California. In 1998, the website began operations offering reservations at a limited selection of restaurants in San Francisco. Restaurants that signed up with the service used the company's back-end software to process the reservations made on the website, resulting in a real-time reservation system for both diners and restaurants. The service has since expanded to cover more than 30,000 restaurants in most U.S. states as well as in several major international cities. Reservations can be made online through its website. On June 13, 2014 the company announced it had agreed to terms with the Priceline Group to be acquired in an all-cash deal for $2.6 billion. The company's home market consists of the United States. However, this has expanded to include Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Mexico, and the United Kingdom. Reservations are free to end users; the company charges restaurants flat monthly and per-reservation fees for their use of the system. According to the company, it provides online reservations for about 54,000 restaurants around the world and seats about 31 million diners per month.
History
OpenTable was founded by Chuck Templeton on 2 July 1998, and initially incorporated in California as easyeats.com, Inc. On 21 May 2009, the company held its initial public offering, on the NASDAQstock exchange under the ticker symbol. The underwriters of the IPO were Merrill Lynch, Allen & Company, Stifel Nicolaus, and ThinkEquity. On 1 October 2010, the company acquired Toptable, a restaurant reservation site in the UK. On 29 January 2013, the company announced that it had entered a definitive agreement to acquire Foodspotting. On 13 June 2014 the company agreed to a takeover offer by the Priceline Group of $103 a share, a 46% premium on the previous day's closing stock price. The offer valued the company at $2.6 billion. Both companies said OpenTable would continue to operate as a separate business under the same management.
Information
For users
The service allows users to search for restaurants and reservations based on such parameters as dates, times, cuisine, and price range. Users who have registered their email address with the system will then receive a confirmation email. Users can also receive 100 or 1,000 OpenTable rewards points after dining; these points can be redeemed for discounts at member restaurants. The company also has a mobile application available in Apple's App Store, Google Play, Blackberry App World, Palm App Catalog, and Windows Phone Store that allows users to find and book dinner reservations.
For restaurants
The service provides restaurant owners with comprehensive reservation management. Subscribing restaurants use an Electronic Reservation Book to replace existing paper reservation systems; ERB is an integrated software and hardware solution that computerizes restaurant host-stand operations. The ERB handles reservation management, table management, guest recognition, and email marketing.
