Five Things You Didn’t Know about OpenTable

Priceline To Buy Online Reservation Service OpenTable For 2.6 Billion

OpenTable is a company that was founded in 1998 and is a part of the Priceline.com network. The company’s app allows users to locate restaurants and book reservations right from their phone with no hassle. OpenTable charges restaurants a monthly fee to use their service but over 30,000 different restaurants are using the app and even some international eateries have hopped on board as well. OpenTable is a great concept that is really convenient for use, but here are five things you didn’t know about the company.

5. They were purchased by Priceline for $2.6 Billion

OpenTable just recently was bought by Priceline.com back on June 13th of this year. The deal was for $2.6 billion in all cash and fits in with Pricelines family of companies pretty well. OpenTable brings in a revenue of about $190 million and is also growing and still expanding its large grouping of restaurants that use the app. OpenTable is still operating as its own business with the same management and staff as before, but now a part of the Priceline family.

4. OpenTable has made some small acquisitions

The company smartly made some acquisitions of smaller companies that provide the same restaurant reservation services as them. In 2010 OpenTable acquired the reservation company TableTop, which operates in the United Kingdom and helped expand OpenTable’s network onto the international level. Last year, the company also announced that they had organized a deal to purchase the company FoodSpotting, which has users to discover food and restaurants through pictures.

3. The app helps out restaurants during their weakest hours

A neat feature to OpenTable is that for using the app, users begin to build up points that will earn them discounts and deals at their favorite restaurants. The restaurants are also aloud to create deals that offer users more points than normal if they book reservations in off-peak hours when little traffic is coming through. This helps restaurants fill out their seats and generate more money during the dead times of the day rather than not earning any revenue at all.

2. The app was founded because of simple annoyance 

In 1998 Chuck Templeton created OpenTable after watching his wife constantly struggle to easily make dinner reservations over the phone. Templeton became so frustrated with this reoccurring experience that it gave him the idea to create simple online reservation with OpenTable.

1. The app has helped millions to get reservations

OpenTable has already helped book reservations for over 620 million different people. The app has also generated around $25 billion worth of sales to the restaurants that have participated in using the service. The company claims that they seat around 15 million diners every month and with more and more restaurants hopping on board with the product, it seems to really benefit them.

Photo Illustration by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Written by Blaise Hopkins

Feel free to contact Blaise on Twitter @Blaisehopkins or check out his blog Man and His Movies.