Here's How One Restaurant Reservation-Making App Is Quietly Tracking Your Dining Behavior (And What It Means For You)

The days of innocently walking into a restaurant and inquiring about a table in the moment are starting to seem a bit quaint and dated. To book the hardest restaurant reservations, get ready to hunker down and click for your life the moment new tables open on growingly ubiquitous reservation apps. While guests are scrounging for tables, what is often not as clear is the fact that these coveted destinations are simultaneously collecting information about you as a diner. OpenTable may know whether you tend to show up late for your reservation, if you order more cocktails than the average patron, or if you often linger at your table once the check has been delivered. These customer habits can then be summarized in automated tags to help restaurants identify top spenders and frequent visitors. 

In fact, OpenTable's Privacy Policy clearly defines the information it collects from users, including your address, your favorite dining city, preferred restaurants, cancellation history, and even social media content and photos. This information may be shared with restaurants and other third-party groups like business partners and social networking services. For example, OpenTable uses advanced guest profiling technology from Bloom Intelligence, which tracks and analyzes guests' dining habits to create more personalized experiences. Users may be interested to know they can easily opt out of certain data sharing, including third-party sharing, in their account settings.

While companies collecting customer data may feel intrusive, it does help restaurants manage their patrons more effectively and can help you find great tables and service. Reservation apps can help you cinch hard-to-get restaurant reservations if you use the "notify" function to be alerted to available slots in real time — provided you're flexible about where and when you are seated. The most popular reservation times can be the worst, so dining at a less-than-primo hour may ultimately land you with smoother service and potentially better food as the kitchen and dining room aren't as slammed with back-to-back orders.

Reservation apps may also collect information about food restrictions or preferred cuisines that users input, allowing restaurants to cater to specific needs. You can further work the system with a dose of old-fashioned good manners. Restaurants want to make their guests happy and provide top-notch hospitality. By arriving in complete parties and on time so as not to back up the kitchen, you are setting the restaurant up for success in delivering an experience you will gush about. And by all means, tell your server if something isn't up to par, but by limiting how often you send something back or how long you stay at your table, you eliminate the chance of any notations in your profile that could affect the tables you might be able to secure.