Table8

Table8 was a restaurant reservation platform focused on providing spontaneous access to sought-after restaurants during prime-time hours. The company was founded in 2014 by Pete Goettner and Santosh Jayaram and was based in San Francisco. The founders identified a market need based on their own frustrations with the inability to book tables at popular new restaurants without significant advance planning. Jayaram, who had been the first business operations hire at Twitter and previously worked at Google, and Goettner, a co-founder of DigitalThink and a Silicon Valley VC, created the company to address this gap. Their venture began as Daemonic Labs, an incubator for mobile and social startup ideas, before they committed fully to the Table8 concept.

The business operated as a mobile application and website, functioning as a concierge-like service for diners. It targeted individuals who make plans on the go, such as locals, business travelers, and tourists, who were willing to pay a fee for last-minute access to otherwise sold-out tables. Table8's model involved securing a portion of a restaurant's inventory, specifically tables held back for VIPs or celebrities, and making them available to the general public. The company's revenue was generated by charging users a fee, typically ranging from $20 to $30, for each successful reservation, a portion of which was shared with the restaurant partner. This created a new revenue stream for the restaurants and helped them mitigate losses from no-shows and cancellations.

The service launched initially in San Francisco and expanded to other major U.S. cities, including Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Miami, Chicago, and Atlanta. By 2016, Table8 had grown its network to over 1,000 restaurants across 13 cities. To further its value proposition, the company introduced a yearly subscription-based "Dining Club," which offered exclusive culinary events, previews, and chef collaborations in addition to reservations. The company secured $7 million in venture capital, with a significant investment from Concur Technologies (later acquired by SAP), which saw a strategic alignment with its business traveler customer base. Despite its initial growth and funding, Table8 is now considered a deadpooled company.

Keywords: restaurant reservations, last-minute booking, dining app, fine dining, restaurant access, sold-out tables, concierge service, mobile booking, culinary experiences, dining club, restaurant technology, spontaneous dining, VIP tables, peak-time reservations, online booking platform, restaurant discovery, business travel dining, Santosh Jayaram, Pete Goettner, food tech