There is a very cool service called OpenTable.
OpenTable is the leading supplier of reservation, table management and guest management software for restaurants plus www.opentable.com, the world’s most popular website for making restaurant reservations online.
With more than 12,000 customers throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain and Japan, the OpenTable hardware and software system replaces pen-and-paper at the host stand. It automates the process of taking reservations and managing tables, while allowing restaurants to build robust diner databases for superior guest recognition and targeted e-mail marketing.
For diners, concierges and administrative professionals, the website provides a fast, efficient way to find available tables that meet desired criteria for cuisine, price and location at a specified time. Reservations are free and can be made around the clock. The website is directly connected to the thousands of computerized reservation systems at OpenTable restaurants. Search results reflect actual, “real-time” availability and reservations are immediately recorded in the same electronic reservation book used by the maitre’d.
Unfortunately there are only 2 restaurants in Geneva, but I see the potential of a tool like this, which has an iPhone app and also manages reviews (like other location apps such as tellmewhere or tripadvisor).
The nice thing of this one is that allows restaurants to manage bookings, and you can go and see who in a specific area and cusine has a free table at 8.30pm, click and book it. Pretty cool. True that you can always grab the phone and call, but here you can do much more: search, etc…
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