A new app lets restaurants offer discounts of up to 50 percent to fill empty tables, with more than 250 venues signed up for its New Zealand launch.
Restaurant discount app EatClub, part-owned by British chef Marco Pierre White, has launched in Auckland and Wellington, promising diners’ savings of up to 50 percent when venues have spare tables.
More than 250 restaurants and cafes have joined the platform here, including eight Michelin-starred venues and names such as The French Cafe, Cassia, Cibo, KOL, Atelier and Dockside.
Restaurants can post a live offer whenever they want to bring in more customers, choosing the discount, time and number of tables available.
Diners claim an offer through the app and receive a straight percentage off everything they order.
EatClub chief executive and co-founder Pan Koutlakis said the system could respond quickly to a quiet spell or a last-minute cancellation.
“A restaurant in Sydney can have a cancelled booking, post an offer and have someone sitting in their restaurant in the next 20 or 25 minutes. It’s that live and that dynamic.”
Customers pay using an EatClub digital card held in their phone’s wallet, which is linked to their usual debit or credit card.
The discount is applied automatically when they pay, so there is no need to show a voucher or tell restaurant staff they are using a deal.
Koutlakis said the app was designed to help restaurants make better use of quieter periods without cutting menu prices for everybody or changing the dining experience.
Venues could schedule offers for traditionally slow times, such as late afternoon during the week, or put one up in real time if bad weather kept customers at home.
He said high-end restaurants had also been receptive to the idea, despite the risk that discounting could be seen as denting their image.
“This is actually something that our co-founder Marco Pierre White says often: the only thing that really devalues your brand is an empty restaurant.”
White, a shareholder and adviser to EatClub, has been involved since before the product launched.
The platform already operates in Australia and the United Kingdom, where it says it has more than three million users and 10,000 restaurants.
It plans to expand into other New Zealand cities in the coming months.
For now, the app’s offers are available only in Auckland and Wellington.