1. What characteristics of the restaurant market made it difficult for a reservation system to work?

OpenTable is the leading supplier of reservation, table management, and guest management software for restaurants. In addition, the company operates the world’s most popular platform for making restaurant reservations online. In less than 20 years, OpenTable has gone from a startup to a successful company with a value of over $1 billion that counts over two-thirds of the nation’s reservation-taking restaurants as clients.
Today, more than 43,000 restaurants in the United States, and more than 20 other countries, including Australia, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, use OpenTable’s system. This system automates the reservationtaking and table management process, while allowing restaurants to build diner databases for improved guest recognition and targeted e-mail marketing. The OpenTable website, mobile site, and mobile app provide a fast, efficient way for diners to find available tables in real time. The websites and app connect directly to the thousands of computerized reservation systems at OpenTable restaurants, and reservations are immediately recorded in a restaurant’s electronic reservation book.