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This site offers spontaneous places in sought after restaurants, so why are chefs so angry? - Walla! Food

2022-02-16T09:01:14.636Z


Spontable is a new venture, offering spontaneous tables, from one day to the next in sought-after restaurants, so why are chefs so angry about the venture? All details >>


This site offers spontaneous places in sought after restaurants, so why are chefs so angry?

In recent days, a site has been launched that offers places, from today to tomorrow, in the most sought-after restaurants, for a brokerage fee, many chefs have been outraged - and the site has gone down, but only for now.

We checked what the story behind the site is and is it speculation or an answer to an important need?

Yael Laor

16/02/2022

Wednesday, February 16, 2022, 11:00 p.m.

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In recent weeks, tensions between diners and restaurateurs seem to be rising.

The corona made everyone a little more nervous and impatient, but the combination of unsuccessful service in many restaurants, and on the other hand price increases, along with asking for credit cards as a deposit that annoys diners, and shortening meal time to an hour and a half in many places, brought things to a boil.



The restaurateurs, for their part, are angry about the whole "double orders" story, which seems to have gotten worse recently, people reserving seats at several restaurants at the same time, canceling the reservation at the last minute, deciding where to go.



Into this story, right at the boiling point, joined a new venture called spontable - a spontaneous table, in free translation.

In recent days, Spontable's website, which has offered places in 30 sought-after restaurants in Tel Aviv, has been launched (and has since been temporarily released), ones that need to be booked quite a while in advance.



The places were offered on the eve of the requested Valentine's Day, two days before the date, when those who wanted to book those requested places for Valentine's spontaneously had to incur a commission of 25 shekels, but apparently to win some credit points from their spouse.



But things did not go as planned, chefs and restaurateurs were exposed to the site and the initiative, were very angry, and the site went down.

Chef Jonathan Borovich (M25), posted an angry post when he discovered the site and wrote "I want to see one more person complain about the credit card policy of booking a restaurant. It breaks records."

Quite a few chefs and people from the field were quick to agree with him, and the site through which spontable people ordered the orders, was quick to cancel.

More on Walla!

Top chefs angry over 50 restaurant rankings: "Everything's personal, it's an addictive game"

To the full article

So we asked to check who is behind this venture, where it came from, and why they think it is so annoying to so many people.



"We are three young friends," says Nadav Klinger, 23, from Tel Aviv, a programmer and one of the founders of Spontable.

The idea was born out of pain we experience as Tel Avivians, from people around us and on social networks, it's a problem that you can not go to a restaurant today without booking a place for a few weeks in mind.



"" So we decided to do a little experiment "he continues"

We only distributed the link among members of WhatsApp groups.

We got a flood of invitations and requests, and it started flying on social media, we wanted to leave it among friends just for the purpose of the experiment, but it got out of hand.

Which proves our claim that this thing is in demand. "



How was this done in practice?

Klinger and his partners, booked seats 3 weeks in advance, at 30 restaurants, for Valentine's Eve and "released" the seats to the air only 48 hours ahead of time, so that spontaneous people, who remembered at the last minute, could enjoy these seats, with a commission of 25 shekels for a table .

Thai House Restaurant.

Imagine a world where you can book places from today to tomorrow (Photo: Photo: Meital Salomon)

"It's important to understand," explains Shira Malai, a jewelry designer by profession, and another partner in the project, "because this is a total of 5 percent of the restaurant's seats, it's not that we caught an entire restaurant. The idea is to allocate a small portion Air a moment after a day of work, and we did not plan in advance. "



"In the Corona era it solves an acute problem, customers also have uncertainty, a person who orders a place a month ago, does not know what will be with him in a month, not everyone it fits, in our eyes to close a place in a restaurant from today to tomorrow is the real experience of going to a restaurant."



"It was just an experiment, we did not expect it to explode like this, of course this model can only work if restaurants cooperate with us. We did not plan to do it behind anyone's back, we first wanted to test whether our environment feels like us."




"Ultimately," says Klinger, "this is a model that exists, both in restaurants, in New York or Barcelona, ​​and in other areas - a company like El Al allocates a certain percentage of seats for passengers who want to book a 90-minute flight, spontaneous people who are willing to pay more money. "It's a profitable and proven model in the field of restaurants as well, we did not pull it off the waist, and for the restaurateurs in the end, customers who are willing to pay the extra money for the place, are also the ones who will spend more money in the restaurant."

Some of the responses received by Spontable in recent days (Photo: Screenshot, courtesy of Spontable)

Did you expect it to be so annoying?


"We really did not expect, we were surprised, a lot of people started sharing and flooding it, and it got a little out of hand. Once we realized there was anger, we decided to take it down right away, it was not supposed to be exposed to the general public."



Why do you think restaurateurs were so angry in your opinion?


"Probably from the feeling of lack of control, that they do not know who is coming. It is clear to us that this is something that without cooperation from the restaurants can not work, we had no intention and desire to hurt. We are talking now with several restaurants, in order to do it collaboratively, this story is profitable For all parties and also valuable for restaurants. "



"Although in the bottom line we had to download the site, but this experiment was successful and proved to us the insane demand, and it really is not just among young people, the demand ranges between very wide age groups, people signed up in quantities next time."



"A lot of people can not plan for so long, because the restaurateurs really felt the need to stand on their own two feet, it's clear to us that we are not doing it behind anyone's back, we understand the problem and see the profitability know it from other worlds, see no reason "Not to give it a chance. If 3 evenings a week 5 percent of the restaurant is allocated for spontaneous people, a huge benefit will grow from it, I do not understand why in this way they will oppose it."



What next?


"We are in touch now with a number of restaurants, to do a solid pilot, but our door is open to everyone of course. There has been an insane amount of people registered for next time, who will do so this time in collaboration with the restaurants."



"In the end, the chefs are very angry about the double orders that diners make," says Shira. "But it's a wheel that feeds itself. He knows that at the last minute it is impossible, and then the places are canceled, a moment before the booking - because it does not work out, because they have decided that they want something else, our project can prevent it. "

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Source: walla

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