In an article in this morning’s New York Times, Open Table has announced plans to integrate suggestions and discussion into their site, emulating the popular Chowhound.com and Yelp.com formats.
This plays directly into Jermey Iggers and Andrew Zimmern’s recents posts regarding the role of the critic in restaurant decisions. If you use Open Table, and your restaurant suddenly has three negative posts, what might that do you to your business? Conversely, do you see the reader reviews eventually being entirely corrupted by self-posting restaurants?
This is a fascinating development in how the public discovers you as a restaurant, learns more about you, and decides to give you business. The implications are immense, especially as more and more diners and restaurants seem to be using Open Table.
If you are a restaurateur that uses Open Table (or chooses to not use Open Table) please comment! We would love to hear your opinion (and you don’t even need to tell us who you are).
Filed under: Ideas - Restaurants
