Please Stop With The ‘Impossible Reservations’ Articles
Seriously- it's been written a lot
TL;DR
There have been many articles written in the last couple years about ‘impossible to get reservations’. Most recently in The New Yorker
Every article mentions the same dozen or so restaurants and the same 3-4 companies trying to build a business off of the vanishingly small number of restaurants with such outsized demand that it can be monetized
The real challenge for restaurants is too much, or at least inefficient, supply. Not excess demand
Large, national media outlets repeatedly telling this story is not good for the industry as a whole as it perpetuates a false narrative around industry health
Opentable says there are 16451 restaurants offering reservations in NYC and Resy has another 2000+. That means there are at least 18,841 restaurants in NYC that ARE NOT named Tatiana, Carbone, Don Angie, Torrisi, 4 Charles Prime Rib, Coqodaq, Polo Bar, Roscioli, Sailor, or Via Carota. Given all the recent articles on ‘Impossible Reservations’, I wouldn’t blame someone for thinking these were the only 10 restaurants in the city. This is not a knock on those restaurants at all; it’s amazing what they’ve accomplished. It is a knock on the publications repeatedly writing essentially the same article, mentioning the same restaurants.
I re-read a bunch of these articles from the last couple years and there are some tropes across all of them.
They all contain multiple restaurants from the list above
They all mention ‘pay for reservations’ apps like Appointment Trader, ResyX, Dorsia, etc.
They LOVE to talk about Nicky Dimaggio as a ‘celebrity reservationist’
They love dropping celebrity names with a particular affinity for Hailey and Justin Bieber
They often look to Ben Leventhal, founder of Resy and Blackbird as the expert in the field of reservations
The disproportionate media focus on a small group of hyper-popular restaurants creates a skewed perception of the New York City dining scene. New York, like any other city, needs the majority of restaurants to be healthy, not just the top .02%. The reason every article mentions the same restaurants is that they are the scant few where demand far outstrips supply. The real challenge for 99.8% of restaurants is the exact opposite.
There is a power law effect that takes hold with the continued media attention. The publications know these articles get clicks that are catnip for social media algorithms. They also tend to spark heated dialogue in the comments section (see below), also good for engagement. With each article demand increases exponentially, not linearly. This attention, initially given by journalists and editors, but then turbocharged by algorithms, can unduly influence guest behavior. It drives diners toward a tiny subset of places while leaving many struggling for visibility.
I can imagine many might say other restaurants just need to be better, or better at garnering attention. I think that ignores the reality of how we consume restaurant journalism nowadays. The content that ‘breaks through’ leans to the extreme- where Taylor Swift dined, an operator trashing guests for canceling reservations, or Horses-esque scandals. As guests and readers, we probably have to vote with our attention to reward better restaurant stories. In the meantime, can we please 86 the ‘impossible reservation’ article.