Tablz Wants to Help Miami Restaurants Upsell the Best Seats in the House

When dining at your favorite restaurant, chances are you have a preferred table.

Maybe it's the perfect corner table at NYC's Daintree Rooftop & Lounge that offers uninterrupted views of the Empire State Building. Perhaps it's a garden terrace nook at Palma in Phoenix where you can dine in a secluded cabana.

Or, it might be a table for two with a front-row view of the live music stage at Little Havana hotspot Cafe La Trova.

When trying to snag that spot on a routine visit feels impossible, a new service offers a way for restaurants and guests to book their favorite tables — sans an inside source or manager hook-up.

Tablz is an online reservation platform that offers its partner restaurants a way to "upsell" table reservations depending on variables like time and location.

According to Tablz creator and Ottawa-based tech entrepreneur Frazer Nagy, the idea is to open a passive revenue stream for restaurants while simultaneously offering a valuable add-on for guests.

Nagy, who has worked in the restaurant industry since he was a teenager and holds a degree in economics, tells New Times he found himself obsessed with calculating dining room economics.

"At one point, I even convinced the restaurant owner where I worked to hand over her sales data for an academic research assignment I was doing on restaurant sales," says Nagy. "It planted the seed of how tough it is to be a restaurant owner and operator."

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, Nagy felt confident he could put his research to good use with a reservation system that could simultaneously provide a positive experience for struggling restaurants and experience-driven patrons.

"Rarely does a technology tool or platform have a win-win for both the restaurant and the consumer," says Nagy. "But Tablz solves two problems. For the guest, it's simple — you don't have to play roulette for the right table for a specific occasion. And from an operator's perspective, this is the first transaction they'll make that doesn't cost them anything."

Launched in October 2022, the table reservation platform uses 3D maps to help customers navigate a dining room to select the establishment's most high-value tables — those with the best view, most privacy, or specific ambiance.

The restaurants charge diners an added fee, typically between $5 and $100 per reservation. Pricing varies by the establishment, the table itself, and the day and time of the reservation, with Tablz taking a cut of the fee.

Nagy is quick to point out that this type of dynamic pricing isn't new.

"We didn't invent this concept. It's already in use for things like sporting events, airlines, and movie theaters  — why not restaurants, too?"

The platform is currently in use by more than 80 restaurants in the U.S. and Canada in cities like Phoenix, San Francisco, New York City, and Chicago, with plans to expand the service across the country and Europe.

In Miami, partners include Cafe La Trova, Da Tang Zhen Wei, Crudos in Wynwood and Hallandale, Divino Ceviche in Coral Gables, and Novecento in Key Biscayne, Aventura, and Brickell.

Nagy says he hopes to see more restaurants open to signing on with Tablz, which recently made Fast Company magazine's 2023 list of "50 Most Innovative Companies" for its ability to tackle some of the most nagging problems facing restaurants and their customers in the years following the COVID-19 pandemic.

"A big part of our dream is to help the restaurant industry. A lot of restaurants undervalue their real estate, and we help them to price tables based on traffic and seasonality so that they can see some of that as a return," sums up Nagy. "When we look at it from a restaurant perspective, they could be making thousands of dollars each month extra. That's money that could help a small, independent operator stay in business or even do things they never thought possible."