First Table

First Table is a restaurant discovery and booking platform founded in Queenstown, New Zealand, in 2014. The concept is simple: diners who reserve the first table of the evening receive 50% off the food bill for parties of two to four, while restaurants gain a tool to fill early sittings and optimise off-peak revenue. The service is free for venues to use.

The platform reaches a community of more than 3.5 million registered diners and works with over 4,300 partner restaurants across 80 cities in New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom and Ireland. Its growth has relied largely on word-of-mouth among an engaged diner community rather than paid acquisition.

Technically, the business operates a marketplace platform with software that integrates with seven major restaurant reservation systems, allowing venues to participate without replacing their existing booking infrastructure. Alongside hospitality and reservation technology, the company works in digital marketing technology aimed at demand generation for its partner venues.

First Table describes its model as a win-win for restaurateurs and diners, and was conceived from the outset as a concept that could scale internationally. Starting as a one-person operation in 2014, it has developed into a hospitality technology platform operating across three countries and four markets.