Reservations at top New York City restaurants are selling for hundreds of dollars
Reservations at some of New York City's hottest restaurants are selling for hundreds of dollars through bidding apps.
Some college students work in the school cafeteria or at the local coffee shop, but Alex Eisler, a sophomore at Brown University in Rhode Island, sells dinner reservations at some of New York City’s hottest restaurants.
He does it through an app called Appointment Trader, where people can pay for a seat at the table at some of the city’s buzziest spots, like 4 Charles, Don Angie or Carbone, a practice that has earned the scorn of some top restaurants and earned Eisler $100,000 over the past 19 months.
For everyday New Yorkers and tourists, getting such sought-after seats is nearly impossible, making platforms like Resy — a popular and free site — a major hub for securing reservations. It works with more than 16,000 restaurants around the world, but for New York’s hottest restaurants, reservations disappear seconds after they go live.
Enter platforms like Appointment Trader, where people can pay to claim a spot — on top of their food and drinks, which can easily add up to hundreds of dollars at New York prices.
Don Angie in New York City is one of the high-demand restaurants where people are willing to pay to secure a seat.Roy Rochlin / Getty ImagesHere’s how the platform works: Its 15,000 sellers scoop up the best reservations, which are then posted on Appointment Trader, where users place their bids. The higher the demand, the higher the final price tag.
Rating: 5