NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Resy, the ground-breaking hospitality technology company, today announces its acquisition of competitor Reserve. As Resy and Reserve both share the same passion for restaurants and operate on the same basic principle of offering cutting edge technology at a fair price, the acquisition was a natural fit. The move solidifies Resy as the largest private restaurant reservation service in the U.S., now connecting consumers to 4,000 of the best places to dine across the country. The Reserve acquisition is the latest acquisition engineered by Resy co-founder and CEO, Ben Leventhal and his team. propelling the technology company to the top of a once monopolized industry. Resy’s strong year-over-year growth since its 2014 start has cemented its position in the U.S. hospitality market and contributed to ground-breaking software and tools created to help restaurants thrive and empower them to deliver superior experiences and elevated customer service.
The Reserve acquisition expands Resy’s stronghold in top dining markets – such as New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles – to include cities like Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C. where Reserve has won partnerships with some of the most prominent players in today’s restaurant industry, including Blue Hill at Stone Barns, Major Food Group, Rick Bayless Group, and Link Restaurant Group. The acquisition will allow Resy to add many of Reserve’s restaurant partners to its already impressive roster of thoughtfully curated restaurants around the world.
Since launching in 2014, Resy has attracted some of the world’s top operators, including Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group and David Chang’s momofuku group, both of which have decided to move their restaurants to Resy. Additionally, Resy’s passion for restaurants, cutting edge technology, commitment to connectivity and transparency, and fair pricing have been among the key contributors to its success and are the tentpoles of its business as the company continues to emerge as an industry leader. With Reserve operating by those same basic principles, as well as its demonstrated record of relationships with top restaurateurs, it became a natural fit in Resy’s progression.
“The Resy team is excited to be partnering with Reserve and its community of amazing restaurants for this next step in our company’s evolution,” said Leventhal. “Like Resy, the Reserve team has engaged with an impressive roster of restaurants in the name of progress. Resy will continue to build a platform that empowers good restaurants to be great and great restaurants to be amazing. By systematically dismantling the stale, inadequate, overpriced hospitality technology stack of the past, we are carving out a bright future for the industry.”
“Since we started selling Reserve table management in 2015, we’ve demonstrated strong growth by expanding our product offering and geographic footprint to provide an alternative system that’s actually aligned with the needs of restaurants,” said Reserve CEO Greg Hong. “Resy is highly complementary to our existing footprint and enhances our ability to focus on the needs of our restaurants and build solutions to support them. Right now our priority is establishing a plan to combine the best of both of our products, and we'll be working closely with our restaurant partners and their guests to ensure that it is a smooth and positive experience. We’re thrilled to join the Resy team.”
As part of the acquisition, the vast majority of Reserve’s employees will be joining Resy, including CEO Greg Hong, who will stay on during the transition period.
Built ‘by restaurants for restaurants,’ Resy’s deep understanding of the hospitality industry makes the platform more than just a reservation management tool; rather, the Resy team becomes a partner in helping chefs and operators grow their business with smart technology.
In April 2018, Resy announced several first-of-its-kind new features and product enhancements, including:
- ResyFly: A cutting-edge inventory optimization program designed to help restaurants minimize the gaps between reservations. ResyFly represents a significant advancement for the hospitality technology industry, offering a combination of slots-based and inputs-based systems for the first time. Restaurants now have the flexibility to schedule different floor plans, reservation grids, and hours of operation for special days or time periods.
- Business Intelligence Tools / Resy Surveys: Resy is committed to providing their partners with 360º visibility by way of Business Intelligence tools that supply data to reveal how a business is trending, how a restaurant’s service staff is performing and what customers really think about a business. One of these tools is Resy Surveys, a first-ever reservation-integrated dynamic survey product. The tool allows restaurants to completely customize private post-meal surveys to gain insight into all aspects of their operation — from steps of service, to customer behavior, to seating and meal preferences. Every survey is tied to a reservation, supplying the restaurant with meaningful, useful and actionable insights from the customer.
- Resy Global Service (RGS): In 2017, Resy and Airbnb deployed a trailblazing integration of the two platforms, connecting Airbnb’s global network of travelers directly to Resy's network of restaurants. From Airbnb, you can discover, book and confirm a reservation - and talk directly to the restaurant via Airbnb’s messaging service. It's one of the largest demand networks for restaurants on the planet. Resy Global Service (RGS) opens up the Airbnb network to select restaurant partners around the world.
Key Resy Features and Products for Consumers Include:
- Curation: Resy presents its users with a curated, high caliber selection of restaurants – these can be Michelin star restaurants, local neighborhood spots, and everything in between.
- Notify Me Feature: One of the most favored features of Resy is its "Notify" button. If a table/time slot isn't available at a restaurant, diners can click "Notify" to be added to a waiting list; when a table opens up, users get a notification and have the opportunity to grab the table they were looking for.
- Resy.com: In April 2018, a new Resy.com launched -bringing together the browsing and booking of Resy restaurant partners, compelling original content and trusted, expertly curated restaurant lists that together serve as a lens into dining experiences all over the world. Guests are able to book reservations in major markets in two clicks, with all of the same customization features like pre-paid reservations, menu highlights, add-ons and special events that Resy is known for.
- Distribution Partners: Resy has integration partnerships with Airbnb, Google, Instagram, and Snapchat to ensure consumers can find and book restaurants in the most convenient and seamless way.
- Resy Events: Resy is no longer just a reservations app, it's an experiential hospitality company that curates and produces its own events (it has ticketing functionality for restaurants, too). Recent "Resy Presented" series include: in SF, Resy & Dominique Crenn Present Women Of Food; in NYC, Resy presents The Franks’ Backyard Chef Series; in upstate NY, Resy x Fish & Game present “Play with Fire”.
For more information on Resy, visit www.resy.com.
ABOUT RESY
Resy powers the world’s best restaurants, using technology to imagine the future of hospitality. Resy offers superior reservation management software and a consumer-facing restaurant reservation app to elevate and enhance dining experiences worldwide. Resy works with 10,000 network restaurants in 160 global cities and 11 countries, seating over 1.4 million diners a week (seating over 85 million diners since its inception in 2014). Resy boasts an industry-low, global no-show rate of 4.8%.
ResyOS is an end-to-end restaurant management platform that offers partners live two-way SMS, auto-confirmed reservation capabilities, a fully automated waitlist, PCI Level 1 compliant third-party credit card handling and loyalty channel management. Restaurant partners have access to ResyFLY, a groundbreaking inventory optimization program, Resy Surveys, an all-encompassing guest feedback loop and a suite of Business Intelligence tools to help them run their businesses smarter and more efficiently.
Consumers can book and manage reservations on Resy.com and on the app from a carefully curated selection of the world’s most distinguished restaurants, including n/naka in Los Angeles and Lilia in New York City. Users now have even better access to restaurants thanks to an enhanced Notify waitlist system, which sends alerts when hard-to-get reservations become available. The app is free and available for download on both iOS and Android.
Resy was co-founded by Ben Leventhal, cofounder of Eater and restaurant industry entrepreneur; Gary Vaynerchuk, an entrepreneur, investor, author; and Michael Montero, founder of CrowdTwist and Fotolog and noted CTO. Resy’s investors and partners include Airbnb, RSE Ventures, Lerer Hippeau Ventures, Slow Ventures and Union Square Hospitality Group.
