Access Denied: The Rise of Black-Market Reservations Disrupting the Restaurant Dining Experience

Third-party sites increase consumer dining costs, increase the rate of no-shows, and can damage a restaurant brand, per National Restaurant Association survey

WASHINGTON, April 24, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- In recent years, a black market for hard-to-get restaurant reservations has spread across the country. Technology has made it easy for individuals and companies to scoop up reservations from legitimate restaurant websites or restaurant-approved reservation sites like high-demand concert tickets. They then sell the reservations on unauthorized online resale sites and social media. This disconnect in the reservation process is causing operational challenges for restaurant operators, like costly no-shows, staffing needs to manage the expectations of customers who purchase these third-party reservations, and potential damage to a restaurant's brand and reputation from a process outside of the restaurant operator's control. For customers, these third-party reservations are making dining out at certain restaurants artificially more expensive or reservations impossible to obtain. 

"Unlike ticket scalpers in entertainment, these third-party reservation sellers contribute nothing to the dining experience," said Steve Woodruff, general manager of Commander's Palace in New Orleans. "They don't make the food better, the service more seamless, or the atmosphere more enjoyable—they simply make it more expensive and frustrating."

As this emerging reservation black market proliferates across the country, customers and restaurants are growing frustrated with the practice. Over the past year, state governments have been working with the restaurant industry to create a regulatory framework to fix the system by giving control over their own reservations back to restaurants. 

In a newly released survey of diners who had recently dined in a fullservice restaurant, nearly 2 in 5 were aware that there were third-party websites that charged diners for reservations. In fact, nearly 15% said they had been charged for a reservation.

More than two-thirds of consumers believe that unauthorized third-party restaurant reservations are harmful, and they are worried about the impacts that unauthorized third-party restaurant reservation companies are having on both customers and restaurants.

• 72% were concerned that certain restaurants are out of reach to even more customers because of reservation resale websites
• 70% were concerned that these middlemen reservations harm restaurants financially because they increase the number of no-show reservations for restaurants.

Eighty percent of consumers want restaurants and customers to be protected from reservations made by third-party restaurant reservation companies, and seven in ten of them support legislation to prevent the unauthorized sale of restaurant reservations in their city.

"The more technology helps us find efficiency in our daily lives, the more it also creates new ways for people to game the system," said Mike Whatley, vice president of State Affairs and Grassroots Advocacy for the National Restaurant Association. "We saw something similar in the early days of third-party delivery, when some companies were putting restaurants on their platforms without contracts or permission from the restaurant. This created chaos for the restaurant and the consumer. To solve this, many states took steps to regulate the relationship between the operator and the delivery companies to give control back to the restaurant. We believe the same kind of relationship between reservation sites and an operator should be required here."

In 2024, the state of New York was the first to regulate the relationship, passing the Restaurant Reservation Anti-Piracy Act, which requires third-party online reservation sites to enter into a written agreement with restaurants before being able to list reservations. Several state legislatures have introduced similar legislation this year including California, Florida, Illinois, Hawaii, Louisiana, and Nevada.

"What these third-party reservation scalpers are doing is not helping restaurants—it's an entirely separate business that exploits the system without contributing to the experience in any way," said Rob Mosher, co-owner of Monteverde in Chicago. "Restaurants are built on hospitality—on making people feel welcome, on ensuring they have an incredible experience from the moment they walk in. When third-party scalpers and bots scoop up reservations, it completely negates that. Guests go online and see no availability and assume they're shut out. We want people—whether they're locals or visitors—to be able to book a table easily, without extra fees, without insider knowledge, and without jumping through hoops just to enjoy a meal with us."

"We are encouraged by the legislation that state legislatures are introducing to give control over restaurant reservations back to restaurants," Whatley said. "Customers and restaurants want the system fixed so that it is fair and works for everyone."

About the National Restaurant Association

Founded in 1919, the National Restaurant Association is the leading business association for the restaurant industry, which comprises more than 1 million restaurant and foodservice outlets and a workforce of 15.7 million employees. Together with 52 State Associations, we are a network of professional organizations dedicated to serving every restaurant through advocacy, education, and food safety. We sponsor the industry's largest trade show (National Restaurant Association Show); leading food safety training and certification program (ServSafe); unique career-building high school program (the NRAEF's ProStart). For more information, visit Restaurant.org and find @WeRRestaurants on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

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SOURCE National Restaurant Association