On Saturday, on the eve of the world soccer finals, Eater hosted a lively celebration of food and sports in New York City, bringing thousands of attendees to Pier 36 to taste their way through cuisines from dozens of countries. Over 30 of NYC’s most in-demand chefs and restaurants — plus visitors from beyond the city — served a diverse sampling of their signature dishes, including banh mi from the East Village’s Bánh Anh Em, burritos from Park Slope’s Vato, slices from Sally’s Apizza and Frank Pepe in New Haven, and many more.

Despite the rainy weather, the vibes were upbeat as attendees, clad in jerseys of their favorite teams, took their shot at scoring goals through an inflatable bottle of Lifeway Kefir and tasted samples of the brand’s probiotic drinks and cheeses. Others posed for photos alongside a giant cup of Maruchan ramen — faux noodles overflowing — and mingled with Seattle chef Shota Nakajima, who provided a ramen trio inspired by Japan, South Korea, and the United States. (Guests could then vote on their favorite in a neck-and-neck competition.)

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Diners visiting A Taste of NYC, presented by Square, sampled free bites from Gourmega, the new restaurant from the founders of the Ghetto Gastro collective. From Edible, guests found sweet treats in the form of bites of cheesecake, brownies, and chocolate-covered fruit. Luckily, cute tote bags from Morton Salt were available to carry any extra goods home.

A Taste of Asia, presented by Cathay Pacific, was a travel-inspired section that featured a popular photobooth installation and a live demo with chef Calvin Eng of Brooklyn hotspot Bonnie’s, who prepared Hong Kong-style French toast. Other samples included Filipino beef adobo short rib and Thai massaman duck croquettes. In the VIP lounge, presented by Cathay Pacific, guests tried exclusive bites from Dominique Ansel, South Philly Barbacoa, Jose Andres’s Mercado Little Spain, and Sushi Noz, and sipped drinks (many drinks) at an open bar.

Spritzes and seltzers from S. Pellegrino and Aqua Panna paired perfectly with the wide range of dishes on offer, and the brand’s tastings of caviar bumps and Parmesan offered an elevated experience in the VIP lounge. Refreshing fruit cups and pineapple juice mocktail from Dole helped guests stay cool amid the summer heat; a selection of beers from Manhattan Beer Distributors and cocktails made with Milagro tequila kept the party vibes going. 

It was a festive celebration and a reminder of the communal power of both food and sports — even better when the two come together. The competition may be fierce in global soccer competitions, but everyone was a winner at World’s Fare.

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British food has long been unfairly maligned as being brown, bread-y, and boring. But stateside, we’ve seen a major shift in attitudes toward British food in the past year or two, with a near-sensational response to new British-inspired restaurants such as Dean’s and Wilde’s. And London’s restaurant scene is vast and ambitious, yet also surprisingly intimate. It draws from culinary traditions all over the world without feeling trend-chasing, celebrates seasonal ingredients with near-religious devotion, and retains a warmth that makes even exceptional restaurants feel disarmingly welcoming. Meals here have a way of stretching into entire evenings, and you’ll want them to. With its centuries-old pubs, world-class Indian food, Italian trattorias and Spanish tapas bars, a growing Southeast Asian scene, neighborhood bistros, and ambitious fine dining, it’s one of the world’s great food cities.

Europe has been sweltering this summer, and I experienced its late June heat wave firsthand when I recently visited a longtime friend (and fellow food writer) living on a houseboat near Tower Bridge. London was pushing triple digits and, in my American opinion, is woefully deficient in air conditioning and ice — but my food itinerary was stacked enough that neither the sauna-like temperatures nor a merciless case of jet lag could stop me from exploring, eating, drinking, and enjoying all the roasted meats, Eton messes, and gin and tonics that London has to offer.

Having a game plan (i.e. a map of recommendations and a roster of reservations) may sound type A, but, in this city, majorly pays off. Because London is enormous and crossing it in 93-degree heat is no small undertaking, I mostly stayed in central and east London. 

I condensed the highlights of a five-day trip into a three-day itinerary that prioritizes long lunches, memorable dinners, and excellent pubs. Consider it my greatest hits. 

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Day 1

Lunch: Towpath

I landed in London sweaty, jet-lagged, and starving. My first stop was Towpath, a tiny, produce-forward café on Regent’s Canal accessible only by foot or bike with a cult following. My friend Charley and I shared mortadella with cherries, trout with creme fraiche, silky eggplant dip, crunchy chicken salad, and a cooling bowl of mint soft serve. Exactly the lunch I wanted after a transatlantic red-eye.

Drinks: The George

By late afternoon, surviving the overbearing heat and my near-psychedelic level of sleep deprivation demanded a large, cold drink. At the 17th-century pub The George, I drank what may have been the most refreshing (and largest) gin and tonic of my life while pointing a rhinestone-studded portable fan directly at my face. 

Dinner: Brigadiers

I yearned for a delicious Indian meal as soon as possible upon arriving in the city, so I arranged to meet friends at Brigadiers, an upscale Indian sports bar. It’s the more casual cousin of two-Michelin-starred Gymkhana (same restaurant group, along with Ambassadors Clubhouse), and reminded me why London’s Indian restaurants are in a league of their own. We dove into a feast of butter-chicken wings, smoky tandoori lamb chops, prawn biryani, goat vindaloo samosas, chile-paneer lettuce cups, cardamom creme brulee, and green-chile coriander margaritas. Absolute perfection, and they had strong air conditioning; I almost cried. 

Late-night: Cittie of Yorke, Trisha’s, Gerry’s Club, Quo Vadis…

After dinner we wandered into Cittie of Yorke, a vaulted, dark-wood pub that’s existed in some form since the 15th century. Very Harry Potter-core. We popped in for more gin and tonics, then headed to Soho. 

First, there was Trisha’s, a deranged quirky basement jazz club (using that term loosely) in Soho. Within minutes, we’d befriended an Absolutely Fabulous-coded woman in animal print; suddenly, we were doing strawberry-and-cream tequila shots with her before being escorted around Soho by a man known as “John the Hat.” One drink became several. We ended up watching a Broadway-style performance of Britney Spears’ “Toxic” with live violin in the sweltering basement of Gerry’s Club. The night ended with cocktails in the upstairs members club at storied mainstay Quo Vadis. London, I’ve concluded, rewards saying yes.

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Day 2

Lunch: Tavern

Miraculously, I was not hung over from the previous night’s adventures, but we’ll skip straight to lunch since my breakfast of matcha and yogurt was unremarkable. This airy bistro, housed in an old Victorian building, is a fun, buzzy new addition to Old Street’s restaurant scene. I’d call its cuisine “post-British.” Its succulent, melt-in-your-mouth pork chop was one of the best I’ve had, served with a sharp hit of whole-grain mustard and jus-braised greens. I also loved the chunion (cheese and onion) puff, and the pork and cuttlefish chorizo; the pickleback martini is a more dignified version of the dive-bar throwback. The restaurant, while gorgeously outfitted, was boiling and smoky inside from the live-fire cooking, yet none of us wanted to leave. Heaven is good conversation over a table crowded with delicious things.

Drinks (and snacks): The Seven Stars

The food at this historic Holborn spot is excellent, it’s home to a famously spoiled cat (now second-generation) wearing an Elizabethan ruff, and the cozy dining rooms feel more like a grandmother’s living room than a commercial establishment. I could happily lose an entire rainy afternoon here, drinking cider and sampling dishes from the blackboard menu.

Dinner: Cycene

Cycene was, perhaps, the most memorable meal of my trip. Its tasting menu, from chef Taz Sarhane, feels historical and transportive in spirit and decidedly modern in execution, celebrating aged meats, foraged ingredients, and English terroir with remarkable precision. Many elements are pickled, cured, and fermented. The evening begins at the downstairs bar with cocktails, charcuterie, and a rich broth made with pork feet before moving through the kitchen for a tour of the pleasures to come; then, you’re whisked into a candlelit dining room where tomato-butter-topped scallops, jewel-like duck breast, and breathtaking desserts unfold before you over nearly four hours. Best to go with someone whose company you really enjoy.

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Day 3

Lunch: St. John

Fergus Henderson’s legendary restaurant remains a house of meat worship and nose-to-tail dining, and also a case study of beauty in restraint: lobster toast, roast bone marrow, Welsh rarebit, braised lamb, and fresh-baked madeleines; adding a gin fizz, glass of wine, or martini feels fitting. We lingered at our long, many-coursed, boozy lunch here for nearly four hours (yes, another four-hour meal), a life-affirming practice that London still seems to encourage.

Drinks: Le Beaujolais

Run by French people, perfumed with bloomy-rind cheeses, and decorated with hundreds of neckties hanging from the ceiling, Le Beaujolais is the sort of place where you can post up and split multiple bottles over delectable fromage and ripped hunks of baguette. I was especially charmed by a framed letter from a regular who once drunkenly stole the restaurant’s enormous wooden table before returning it with an effusive handwritten apology. This is the kind of restaurant lore I live for.

Dinner: Mountain

No restaurant was recommended to me more frequently or enthusiastically than Mountain, the Basque-inspired Soho restaurant from chef Tomos Parry. I started with — and loved — the savory Olive + Almond cocktail — a tequila-and-sherry riff on a dirty martini. An earthy morel mushroom omelet with Spenwood cheese became the table favorite, alongside roasted duck, short ribs, paper-thin cured beef, and a bright, kumquat-studded crudo of pollock and monkfish. No wonder Dua Lipa loves this place.

Late-night drinks: A Bar With Shapes for a Name

We ended the night at A Bar With Shapes for a Name, a conceptual cocktail bar with a moniker to match. The alchemic drinks were worth the wait (even at an ungodly late hour) to get in, especially the Kazimir, made with clarified peach-yogurt vodka, absinthe, saline, and “recomposed” lime. A woman holding a trembling Chihuahua casually divulged trade secrets about a major toy company before disappearing into the night. I love London.

Where I want to go next time: Tatar Bunar, a new Ukrainian bistro with dill gintinis and a “borscht ceremony for two;” Casa Fofò, a seasonally driven restaurant in Hackney with a unique, affordable set-price menu; Cece’s for fun Italian with a side of glamour.

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What spoke to me the most about the Instagram announcement for the new Manhattan restaurant Somssi was the fact that it was done in such an unexpected manner. In the photo, a hand holds a piece of lace against the shiny backdrop of a powder blue car. The lace, custom-made, is about the size of a postcard, bearing the restaurant’s name in looping swirls of white thread, its address and opening date sewn in blockier letters beneath it. Sunlight streams through the lace, casting shadows of the curlicues that border the piece’s scalloped edges. The scene looks tangible, like a moment that really existed. It stopped me in my scroll.

“Somssi” is a Korean word that refers to “a skill or a knack that you polish over time, and has a lot to do with things that you craft with your hands,” explains managing partner Ahris Kim. For Somssi, that sense of the handcrafted continues into the logo, which features the restaurant’s name stitched into cloth, its custom typeface designed to evoke Asian calligraphy. Its curtains are made from old crochet and lace tablecloths, with the one at the front door spelling out the restaurant’s name in cutouts embellished with embroidery (it, too, has been the focus of an Instagram post). Margaret Muza, Kim’s childhood best friend, did the interiors, sourcing vintage glassware and tchotchkes; Muza’s mom made the curtains, using fabric from her own collection built over decades. 

More and more, I’m stopped in my scroll by something that evokes the opposite feeling: a kind of semi-defeated revulsion, which I attribute to the barrage of images that bear the grotesque hallmarks of being AI-generated. They are the opposite of handcrafted, often riddled with errors that only a technology without real human experiences would make: the sandwiches that defy gravity; the cocktails in glasses that cast physically impossible shadows; the flyers for events at restaurants that are so overstuffed and overstylized that they’ve almost come full circle into camp; the fantastical scenes, like a cat holding two tacos, which would be cute if dreamed up by an illustrator but which instead feel cynical and smug in one’s absence.

The backlash to AI imagery is growing across a certain part of the culture. Sentiment along the lines of “I’d rather see a poster made with Sharpie on a scrap of paper than an AI event flyer,” or “I’m not going to your restaurant if the ad is the AI” is proliferating. “Frictionmaxxing,” a term that writer Kathryn Jezer-Morton coined to refer to a rejection of technologies of convenience in favor of slower and more analog processes, has escaped containment, coming to mean the general choice to choose pre-internet ways of creation and problem-solving. In this sense, it can refer to the choice of the handcrafted over the AI-generated. 

And even when not overtly backlash, there is, at the very least, a friction-filled reaction happening culturally in design right now to the sudden dominance of AI. The work of photographer Szilveszter Makó, known for his reliance on “true materials” like absurd physical props and daylight, has swept the fashion scene in recent months. I see a similar ethos echoed in newer visuals from publications like Bon Appétit, which have recently embraced creative elements that make clear physical, real-life effort, like a stop-motion animation featuring wobbly-edge paper cutouts for an article about throwing watch parties. 

I wondered, in the earlier days of AI, if its inevitable abundance would eventually lead to a renewed valorization of the analog, the physical, and the explicitly human-made, and indeed, that seems to have increasingly become reality. Take the New England grocery store chain Market Basket, which recently released a limited edition of its weekly circular that’s entirely hand-illustrated by artist Katie Christensen. It’s meant to call back to the store’s earlier days, when circulars were always drawn by a person. 

Or take Fearless Coffee in Johnson City, Tennessee, which posted a series of images promoting its new menu earlier this summer. “Currently our world is saturated with digital noise and content. AI promos and graphics dominate the landscape,” the shop wrote on Instagram. In hopes of standing out amid the slop, the shop commissioned photographer Jamey Booher for a photoshoot intended to take people “back to a time before [AI] existed,” posing a banana latte, for example, in a scene that evoked late-’90s summer, cassette tapes and all. The gesture (and stance) didn’t go unnoticed, hitting the feeds of people like myself who only know Johnson City from “Wagon Wheel” and becoming, it seems, the shop’s most-liked post ever.

Shinji, a new Japanese restaurant in Toronto, caught my attention through a Reel shared by calligrapher Sylvia Wong, who had been commissioned by the restaurant to hand-engrave its logo onto wine glasses. In her post, Wong acknowledged that while hand-engraving is less efficient than machine-engraving, it was more in line with the restaurant’s ethos on craftsmanship. Frictionmaxxing!

Amid this glut of AI content on Instagram, photos of handwritten menus now fill me with a similar feeling as Somssi’s lace and cloth — something between relief and admiration, a grounding in the realm of the real. Melissa Martin of Mosquito Supper Club in New Orleans has recently shifted how she promotes her restaurant on social media, posting simply taken shots of handwritten paper menus instead of the styled professional photos from her cookbooks. 

After a startlingly slow summer, the posts are a way of reminding people that her restaurant is still open, Martin explained to me in a message, but she also appreciates the task of it. “I like the feeling of handwriting the menu, trimming it down with scissors, taking a picture, and posting,” she says. Even if the handwritten menu is only for Instagram, the process feels “more personal.” Her menus in the restaurant are done on a chalkboard — mostly to cut down on printing costs, but also because of the analog appeal. “I’ve never used AI for anything and I don’t plan on it,” Martin says.

Superiority Burger, in lower Manhattan, has always had a punk irreverence, thanks to its chef and owner Brooks Headley’s background in the hardcore music scene. It sticks to its guns of vegetarianism in a distinctly non-trendy way (even when plant-based diets are falling out of favor), championing the produce of small farms and getting diners stoked on, say, the short-lived window of sprouting cauliflower from Campo Rosso.

In the age of the AI-slop restaurant, I feel even more drawn to Superiority’s DIY approach to something as corporate-tech as Instagram. Often, specials are announced via hand-scrawled notes with a Sharpie on a piece of paper, which is then photographed and shared online. To announce a collaboration between the restaurant and the Queens sandwich shop Salty Lunch Lady’s Little Luncheonette, the two restaurants posted cutout paper letters, wrinkled and haphazard, spelling out the news. 

What might have once seemed like Superiority Burger’s bit of affectation now comes off like a reaffirmation of the restaurant’s values. Someone made this, just as someone made your food, just as someone nurtured the vegetables from seeds. Sometimes, Sharpie on scraps, done quickly and cheaply, says more than an AI-generated image ever could.

At Dean’s, the long-awaited new British restaurant in New York City, the menu is also handwritten. Every week, interim director of operations Tommy Hunt receives the menu updates, then comes in and writes the menu by hand for it to be photocopied. “When we talked about the pubs that we admired most, like our sources of inspiration in the [United Kingdom], there was always a handwritten menu, because it’s a really personal experience,” says co-owner Annie Shi. “[Hunt] has really classic, to me, English handwriting. It’s bold, and it’s between cursive and straight writing.” 

She imagines that, over time, the handwriting might change, but she likes this possibility: a way of tracking the restaurant’s evolution. At Shi’s other restaurant, King, which opened in 2016, the branding appears similarly handmade, with illustrations by artist RF. Alvarez; its logo is a kind of scratchy, squiggly scrawl. For Shi, there’s a tether between these clearly handcrafted visuals and her restaurants’ perspectives on food. Even during the peak of farm-to-table, it’s never been her style to “shout from the rooftops where we’re sourcing,” she says. “But I think there are other ways where you can indicate that this is a personal, craft-driven project, and it’s in those little touches like a handwritten menu.”

None of this is new for restaurants. But in the post-AI world, these markers of real hands behind something appear even more charming: a direct confrontation with what’s taken over. Let’s return to that phrase “somssi,” or skills honed by time. “Anywhere where we could impose a handmade detail, we did,” Kim says. Thus, “even AI-generated work would go against what ‘somssi’ should stand for.”

It’s hard to think of a path of more friction than choosing to run a restaurant; why add even more friction to that? In these conditions, yes, it costs more to hire a photographer to promote your new menu than to generate one with AI, but it’s also increasingly clear that many people would rather see a badly taken, lo-fi photo than an engineered AI image. For one thing, it feels like a reflection of one’s values. To me, a restaurant that employs AI art is capitulating to the culture of slop, akin to reheating premade food from Sysco. It’s impossible to square with a value system that cares about craft and integrity.

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When I ask a friend for restaurant recommendations, I’m rarely asking for something as cut and dry as the operating hours, dress code intel, or whether it’s cash-only — all of that’s helpful, but also easily searchable. If I’m reaching out to you, I’m looking for some notes with a little more color. “The Thai restaurant is kitsch, (literally) underground, and exactly the kind of place that would impress John Waters” is so much better than “fun atmosphere.” These are the kinds of specific, game-changing details that the Eater team prioritizes in our own restaurant reporting, and which we just integrated into the Eater app. 

There are a lot of new features in the app, from ordering delivery to booking a ride, but the notes feature might be my favorite. When my Eater colleagues dine out, I know that they’re jotting down not just what to order, but whether Bamonte’s is a great place to take your parents when they’re in town (it is). There are also more venues than ever in the app, and when Eater app users leave notes of their own, it signals to our editors that your favorite off-the-grid dive bar or taco stand is a must-try. 

You can download the Eater app and see for yourself, but I wanted to give you a peek at some of my colleagues’ recent notes: 

Thai Diner (New York City)

One of my favorite restaurants of all time. Always fun, always satisfying. My absolute favorites are the chicken liver with roti and the cabbage rolls, but I’ve had most of the menu at this point and it’s all awesome. I finally got the seafood tower for the first time recently and it rules. (The scallop! The quail eggs!) Also one of the best breakfast sandwiches in the whole city imo. – Bettina Makalintal, senior reporter, Eater 

Tiki on 18th (Washington, D.C.)

I miss the chill, divey vibe of The Game, but you can still find many of its Filipino highlights on this menu, like lumpiang and Jo-Jo’s pansit, alongside a strong selection of tiki drinks. One of my go-to spots in Adams Morgan. Menu thoughtfully highlights many gluten-free options. – Missy Frederick, editorial director, Eater  

OyBar (Los Angeles)

Absolutely delightful, low lit haunt that’s as fun and freewheeling for dinner, as it is as a late night stop for (very good) cocktails. The “spicy noods” are elite and the pickle plate is the perfect Japanese-Jewish bento experience. – Hilary Pollack, deputy editor, Eater

Chappie’s (Catskills, NY)

It’s walking distance from the quirky Roxbury Motel (we stayed in the coconut cream pie room) and had excellent fish and chips. – Nadia Chaudhury, deputy dining editor, Eater 

Nodoguro (Portland, OR)

This is a very special occasion-worthy spot. Tucked away in a tower downtown it feels like you are stumbling into one of Portland’s hidden gems. The service is impeccable, the dishes, spread out over 6ish courses, will leave you full, appreciative of the PNW bounty, and in awe of the team’s skills. Don’t skip out of the sake pairing, you will get to taste a range of styles from breweries across Japan. – Kailtin Bray, senior director of audience development, Eater

J.P. Graziano Grocery (Chicago)

An absolute Chicago institution! Get the Mr. G and say hi to Jim, whose family has been running the place for many generations. Don’t skip the giardiniera! – Stephanie Wu, editor-in-chief, Eater

Download the Eater app to learn more. 

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In this episode of Large Format, Zavala’s Barbecue in Grand Prairie, Texas, handles an influx of 3 million tourists visiting the town for FIFA’s 2026 World Cup by staying open for 30 days straight — a record for the small barbecue operation. With 20,000 pounds of brisket and hundreds of pounds of sausage hitting the grills, the Zavala’s team is busy.

About 200 beef briskets are trimmed, dry-rubbed, and smoked each week. A simple spice rub of salt and pepper helps Zavala’s brisket to stand out. An additional 250 pounds of sausage, all made in house, are put on the grill throughout the day, starting at 4 a.m. When they reach that perfect snappy texture the team soaks the links in ice water. Finally carnitas are grilled for hours before being thrown back in the smoker in a bath of coke and oranges for another three hours until the meat is falling apart.

Owner Joe Zavala says the secret to pulling off a large volume of barbecue — spread out across six smokers — is having everyone on the team be involved in keeping the meats consistent. “Everybody walks by the smoker, they’re looking at the temperature, they’re looking at the fire,” he explains. “So it’s multiple eyes on it to hold all of us accountable, because it’s not just one person, it’s all of us.”

Watch how this barbecue spot is serving up massive amounts of smoked meats, alongside classic Texas hospitality, during the World Cup in this episode of Large Format.

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A week after being nominated for its 18th New York Emmy, Eater has been nominated for a Daytime Emmy. The 2026 nominations, announced on Tuesday, recognize both broadcast and digital shows; Eater was nominated for Outstanding Daytime Short Form Program for its Most-Ordered, a new series that debuted this year.

Most-Ordered spotlights the dishes found on just about every table at a specific restaurant; the pilot episode focused on Lori Jayne, which operates within the bar Danger Danger in Brooklyn and is helmed by chef Sam Braverman. The episode goes all in on Braverman’s steak frites, touching on every stage of the process: butchery, fry preparation, steak butter, sauce (a unique rendition of au poivre), and final assembly.

The popularity of the dish was mirrored by the popularity of the episode, which surpassed 1 million views within three days and inspired viewers to recreate the dish at home (and diners to place so many orders of steak frites at Lori Jayne that they sold out).

This is Eater’s sixth Daytime Emmy nomination, including several in the Short Form Program category. The 53rd annual ceremony takes place in Los Angeles on Friday, October 30.

Watch the Lori Jayne episode of Most-Ordered here:

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This episode of Large Format goes inside the dining rush at Arlo Williamsburg, where hundreds of diners stream into the onsite restaurant, Sungold, while guests simultaneously order room service.

Executive chef Michael King chats about how the massive kitchen goes through more than 2,000 eggs a week and constantly churns out big, fluffy pancakes for brunch. In addition to serving nearly 4,000 hotel guests each month, the kitchen also supplies five event spaces and three bars on the property, bringing in another 1,00 guests each week.

“There’s certainly a misconception that in a hotel restaurant the first thing that suffers at that volume is the quality of ingredients and the execution,” King says. “The commitment that we have to ingredients, technique, cooking from scratch lends itself throughout the building and to every plate of food that we put out.”

Prep is a key piece of the puzzle. Managers plan out every bit of time in the kitchen, figuring out what needs to be made in advance for large incoming crowds. Rooftop pool events are common, where Sungold dishes are made into party bites, such as the spicy fried chicken slider.

Across the kitchen, cocktail batching and daily prep for nearly 800 garnishes supports the $8 million beverage operation. Head bartender Armando Aceredo is the mixologist behind some of the hotel’s top-selling cocktails, including the frozen passionfruit margarita.

Watch how a massive NYC hotel manages prep for events, room service, and restaurants in this episode of Large Format.

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How long would you wait in line for dessert? For food lovers craving this summer’s TikTok-viral dot cakes, the lines in front of Manhattan’s Butterfield Market have been forming as early as 6 a.m. and lasting for hours. This phenomenon is nothing new to NYC, or any other city home to a viral food moment; Broad City poked fun at internet-viral food trends with its fictional “churron” churro-macaron hybrid (remember when Babish actually brought it to life?) and Saturday Night Live parodied the act of waiting in a big dumb line as a painstaking, inevitable human experience. 

That was before the business of line sitting also blew up on social media. 

“Line sitting” (or “line waiting” and “line standing”) is exactly what it sounds like: the act of being paid to wait in line for someone else’s Broadway tickets, sample sale access, churron, or table at a popular restaurant. According to full-time, professional NYC line waiter Robert Samuel, there’s been more public interest than ever in the unique job. “It’s always been a thing,” Samuel told Eater by phone shortly after wrapping up a line waiting gig, “but I think social media makes it bigger than it used to be. That’s why there’s more people out there doing it. I blame TikTok more than any other platform.” 

Samuel was born and raised in Brooklyn, and established his line waiting business Same Ole Line Dudes after clocking the line-spawning demand for coveted products (the iPhone sparked the first line wait venture for Samuel) and experiences. Now, it’s been nearly 15 years, and his business shows no signs of slowing down. “We currently have about 35 [line waiters] on average that take requests throughout the city,” he says, “and sometimes even beyond, for anything that requires a wait.” 

In his business’s early years, he says Cronuts were the big ticket item. “We had a client who wanted to impress these business people visiting from Japan. They wanted to close a deal with something they’d never seen before, and I guess that was Cronuts. They sent six of our [line sitters] to get a dozen, because you can only buy so many per person at a time.” 

Same Ole Line Dudes charges $25 per hour with a two-hour minimum, and rates can also increase for rush fees (between $15 and $25), holiday rates, inclement weather, and the occasional overnight wait for, say, the croissant cereal from L’Appartement 4F. Samuel says that there’s also been a significant uptick in the “freelance” line standers from sites such as TaskRabbit or Craigslist, and emphasizes that this might not necessarily occur because lines are getting longer (although it also feels that way sometimes), but rather, because social media is bringing both more visibility — and thus, virality — to a larger audience. Recently, a new website went viral for paying people who live by popular restaurants to put up cameras in their windows and livestream lines at hot spots like Golden Diner and L’Industrie in NYC. Waiting-in-line culture is so omnipresent that Los Angeles influencers are making dining guides exclusively and specifically for places with long lines (inversely, there’s also a TikTok account focused on NYC restaurants with no lines).   

On TaskRabbit, a website that connects individuals with freelance “Taskers” who are available to complete tasks like repairing a faucet, delivering furniture, or waiting in line, the going rate for line sitters is listed as “between $28 and $90” per hour nationally. The largest number of line-sitting taskers is in New York City (over 4,900); a search in other major cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago yielded a couple hundred Taskers per city who marked themselves as either practiced line sitters or folks willing to perform the duty. The reviews for the more experienced sitters reveal a common thread of what the people hiring them are looking for: good communication, timeliness, and the trust that they will handle your dot cake (if need be) with care. 

Los Angeles-based line sitter Korem A. has completed over 84 line waiting tasks on TaskRabbit, including waits for restaurants and pop-ups. “I’ll wait for you like I would for myself,” she writes, “with care and responsibility”; Ahmed H. is a Tasker in San Francisco who, per his bio, has only completed one line-waiting task so far — but he’s also able to commit to more line-waiting tasks within a short two-hour notice. “I am patient, reliable, and always on time,” his profile reads, “I understand that waiting in line can take time and attention.” These taskers have a potential upper hand against a business like Same Ole Line Dudes, which Samuel says generally asks for a few days’ notice. “We can always talk about rush prices, but people also have to understand that we can’t just drop everything to get them that Greek yogurt. We’re also delivering with a [degree] of professionalism, because we’ve been around for a long time.” 

The dot cakes are the hot item right now in NYC. “We had a customer who wanted two [dot cakes] of every flavor,” Samuel says, “so she hired five line sitters.” At $11 per dot cake and $50 (minimum) per line sitter, that’s a significant markup. For food items that might be subject to melt, Samuel’s sitters make a point to notify the client of the ideal time that they should swing by the location to pick up their treats, “although if they want us to bring it to them,” he laughs, “we will deliver it in its altered state.” 

Top restaurant requests for Same Ole Line Dudes include Italian and pizza places like Via Carota, Lucali, and Emilio’s Ballato, but Samuel says that not every restaurant is welcoming of his line sitters. “I don’t want to name any names,” he tells Eater, “but there is a very in-demand steakhouse in the West Village that has been giving us pushback.” It feels like an odd move to Samuel, who sees it as no different from “someone sending their secretary to go put a name down” or “a mom sending her younger, more able-bodied son to put a name down for them for later.” A Lucali staff member told Eater that they now experience a steady mixture of [Same Ole Line Dudes] and line sitters from Craigslist or TaskRabbit. 

When asked about this new influx of line sitters, Samuel doesn’t seem too concerned. However, he does think the advent of delivery platforms diminished his business somewhat over the years. “We used to have a return customer who lived in Harlem, but wanted Adel’s Famous Halal from 6th Avenue, which obviously wasn’t the kind of place you [call in to order]. He scheduled with us every week, until one day he stopped. I wonder if that’s because it’s on Uber Eats.” Even so, Samuel says business always finds a way of picking up. “This is New York, so there’s always something else that pops up in its place.” 

The only downside to Samuel’s lucrative idea is that it has rendered non-monetized line waiting — not professionally, but in life — really annoying. “It’s like asking a doctor to do a surgery for free,” he laughs, “This is my profession. If I’m waiting in a line, I’m getting paid.”  

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You’ll soon be able to watch your favorite Eater videos, from Mise en Place to Smoke Point, on one of the world’s biggest streamers.

Today, Netflix announced partnerships with dozens of digital publishers to bring their videos to their platform; that includes Eater, as well as other food brands like Bon Appétit, Epicurious, Delish, Food & Wine, Tastemade, and Buzzfeed’s Tasty. Other lifestyle video content from the likes of Architectural Digest, Allure, Billboard, Variety, and Harper’s Bazaar will also start streaming on Netflix.

Starting August 3, hundreds of new, recent, and archival Eater videos will be discoverable on the Netflix homepage for audiences in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. That includes new episodes from current series like the celebrity-filled Let’s Do Lunch and the character-driven Chef’s Day Off, as well as iconic favorites from our back catalog, such as Handmade, Vendors, and Brent Meats World.

“Partnering with Netflix gives Eater’s award-winning video program even more global reach, and brings our storytelling around restaurants and food culture to new audiences,” said Stephen Pelletteri, Eater’s vice president of video. Eater’s video programming has been nominated for and won multiple New York and Daytime Emmys over the years, as well as other prestigious journalism awards.

Eater video remains on all the platforms you already know and love, so keep watching — and check back on August 3 to start streaming Eater on Netflix.

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This excerpt was originally published in Pre Shift, our newsletter for the hospitality industry. Subscribe for more first-person accounts, advice, and interviews.

Now Open is a yearlong series celebrating some of 2026’s most exciting new restaurants. Throughout the year, we’ll check in with teams in Chicago, New York City, and Washington, D.C. to hear what it’s really like behind the scenes of a buzzy opening. Then, we’ll host exclusive meals at these restaurants as part of Dinner Party, presented by Capital One. Read along for challenges, candid reflections, and advice from the proprietors behind some of the country’s hottest new openings.

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All Well comes from the team behind Oriole, a fine dining restaurant that’s been recognized by both the Michelin Guide and the James Beard Awards. At the restaurant, “you feel comforted when you walk in and know that we’ve dialed in the food and the cocktails,” says Larry Feldmeier, the restaurant’s executive chef and co-owner. Even the name comes from having that kind of rapport. “When I was working at Oriole with Noah [Sandoval, All Well’s chef-partner], when one of us was out of town, we’d check in with each other, and we’d text ‘all well.’” he says. “It was a way to see how things were going at the restaurant and see how everyone was doing. We were like, We should just call the restaurant that.”

Mary Anne Porto: You opened in April—how has it been so far? Any challenges?

Larry Feldmeier: The opening—after actually opening the doors—has been pretty smooth. Leading up to it, the week before, things we had ordered months ahead of time—glassware, plates, things like that—all of a sudden, we were told we couldn’t get those [in time]. So there were hiccups. But we really lucked out with getting a good team in here. 

How do you build a good opening team?

A lot of it has been more word of mouth, like friends telling other friends to come work here. I had not met Mary Christie, the GM, but Noah had worked with her years ago and said she’d be the perfect fit, and she was on board. I had also worked with our bar director Maxx [Kleiner] at Oriole, and we had always had a great relationship, so he was one of the first people I reached out to to see if he’d be interested in the program. Our sous chef is also someone I’d worked with. From there, it was a bit of a spiderweb, where they reached out to people who were on board. [The hiring process] involved [us] covering [some positions] until we had everyone that we needed. Some of our team didn’t start until the day we opened because they were coming from different places, so that was a bit of a challenge. 

For the employees who start on opening day, how does that work? Do people get super quick training?

We have pretty minimal training. We got the space in January and didn’t start a lot of work on it until February. In February and March, we got construction done and equipment in. Once that was done, [at the] end of March, we were like, “We basically need to do friends and family in two to three weeks.” So it was a bit of a time crunch. We hired [most of the team] the first week of April and did friends and family the following week. 

[Training] was kind of trial by fire. With the management we have, we knew we’d be working stations, getting things set up and organized the way we wanted. Then when people started, we could say, “Here’s how it goes.” It worked out well. There are other places where they’re doing six weeks of training at new restaurants and sometimes I think it’s almost easier to get thrown right into it, especially if you have a group of talented people that know what they’re doing. 

That probably also helps shape the processes, to see what works best for everyone.

A hundred percent. Even setting up the lineup. For the first couple weeks, we were moving and setting up new stations in our back kitchen. It’s a lot of learning as we go, building together.

When you were thinking of opening All Well, were you intentionally trying to make something different from Oriole? 

That was one of the biggest things we talked about, making sure it wasn’t just Oriole 2.0. It’s something me and Noah wanted to do. We have very similar styles of food, but we wanted something completely different. 

In the beginning, a lot of the clientele—probably like 60 percent—were Oriole regular guests. Now it’s starting to balance out. But I also tend to think that there are people who always lean toward tasting menu kinds of restaurants. [Making sure guests know All Well is its own thing] is still something we struggle with a little bit. But I think as time goes on, All Well will set its own identity.

Can you tell me a little bit about how you came up with the menu, and whether you approached that differently than you would at Oriole?

This is another cheesy thing, but the biggest considerations we had were making sure everything tasted good and was done properly. It’s a comforting space, but it’s not something where we’re trying to tell a story of like, Here’s your childhood memories, reimagined on a plate. It’s just well-done food, things we really want to eat when we go out. 

I think one of the biggest differentiating factors here, versus at Oriole, is that there are some dishes that are a little less refined. For example, we do bigger family-style pasta dishes, or serve fried fish at the bar. We want people to realize that this isn’t uptight. It’s fun, and you can be loud and messy.

Is there a dish that stands out?

That family-style pasta course encompasses what we want to do here. It’s a stuffed pasta with a Délice de Bourgogne and potato filling. It’s glazed in beurre monté with a bunch of English peas and a little bit of Banyuls vinegar and pea tendrils. We serve it in a copper pot with sourdough toast from Milli bakery here in Chicago. That gets lathered in buckwheat honey butter with puffed greens on there for texture. We also bring a little bit of broth on the side made from smoked chicken. You get bowls at your table, so the idea is that you can scoop the pasta in your bowl, add broth if you want, and dip your bread in there. It’s pretty tasty. It’s something that maybe you don’t notice when you’re eating it, but there’s a lot of technique behind it. 

You also have a bar with food available until midnight a la carte. Did you always know you wanted to do that, and who do you serve on that side?

We had a pretty loose idea of what we wanted to do, but when we looked at this space, which is set up as a pretty long room with pillars down the middle, it almost naturally broke into two rooms. We wanted to be a space where, yeah, you can come in and have a five-course meal, but also, we wanted people in the neighborhood to be able to grab a sandwich or have a drink before heading home. 

We’re in probably the most popular food area downtown, so we also wanted cooks to be able to come and have food after work [at the bar.] Five, 10 years ago, all of these restaurants were open until 1 to 2 in the morning, and nowadays it’s almost impossible to find anything available after 10 o’clock—or at least anything decent. We wanted to do a little something for everybody.

What’s something they don’t tell you about opening a restaurant that more people should know?

Have lots of money. [Laughs] I think the biggest thing, for me, is the food is the easiest part; the business is the hard part. The more you can actually understand the financials and what it takes and costs, the more successful you’re going to be. How good your food is won’t matter if you’re not making money.

How did you figure that out?

I’ve been doing this for 20 to 25 years now. I love fine dining; it’s probably my favorite thing to do. When I was younger, I really wanted to open a place. But I also worked at some hotels for a couple years. Working in those more structured, kind of corporate places may not be as fun, but those are the places that are the most organized, that have P&Ls, and that really teach you the basics so you can comprehend everything that goes into a restaurant. For me, doing some things outside of what I anticipated doing taught me a lot.

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Eater has been nominated once again for a New York Emmy Award, its eighteenth in nine years. The 2026 nominations, announced today, recognized an episode of The Experts in the category of Magazine Program — Single Program.

The nominated Experts episode, “New York’s Best Porchetta Comes From This Tiny Suburban Deli,” spotlights chef Angelo Competiello, who cooks up some of New York’s best dishes at his modest deli shop in Suffern, New York, called Alta Irpinia. The episode explores how Competiello makes his famous porchetta, as well as his deep knowledge of pork, which dates back to his childhood days thanks to his dad’s work in local pork shops. Other dishes are spotlighted, including fresh mozzarella — “the core of the store,” in Competiello’s words — multiple types of pizza, traditional meatballs, and inventive sandwiches that are unique to Alta Irpinia.

The episode was produced, shot, and directed by Tom Daly, along with co-director Stefania Orrù and director Murilo Ferreira. Bill Vella was responsible for production sound and Howie Burbidge for editing.

Eater’s video team has previously won five New York Emmy Awards, including wins in 2022 and in 2021, and was also nominated in 2024 and 2025. The winners of the 2026 New York Emmys will be announced on Saturday, October 10.

Watch the full episode:

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I recently popped into a small Vietnamese restaurant in Brooklyn for an afternoon coffee. The ambiance was inviting, and the space was decorated with the kinds of personal tchotchkes I mourn the absence of at the corporate ghost kitchens in my neighborhood. Dine-in traffic was light on the unseasonably windy weekend afternoon, and while there were only a few customers, the only front-of-house staffer — who was filling the combined roles of host, server, and food runner — was hustling, darting between dine-in customers and delivery workers outside by their mopeds. Inside, to the left of the register, I noticed a series of cartoonishly long receipts stapled to bags for to-go orders. “I’m so sorry, it’s been like this all day,” the staffer told me with a touch of exasperation, pointing to the fleet of to-go bags before dashing outside for another order handoff. 

Over the past decade, one of the most significant changes to the dining world has been the rise of third-party delivery services such as Grubhub (founded in 2004), Caviar (2012), DoorDash (2013), Uber Eats (2014), to name just a few. A lot has been said about these platforms’ impacts on restaurants’ revenue, as well as the trials and tribulations of delivery drivers seeking fair working conditions; less has been said about the ways in which they are changing the duties of some of the restaurant world’s most unsung workers: food runners.  

When it comes to assembling, packing, and handing over the endless stream of to-go orders many restaurants now receive, many food runners are feeling overwhelmed. Traditionally, the job of a food runner is relatively simple: to deliver food from the kitchen to the customer. It’s also not uncommon for runners to take additional orders from tables to pass on to servers, and occasionally clean tables to keep things moving smoothly during busy periods. According to ZipRecruiter, the average hourly wage for New York City food runners is roughly $14 an hour, and the average national income for food runners is around $28,400 (not factoring in tips). At smaller restaurants, restaurant windows, and fast casual spots (like the above Vietnamese restaurant), servers will often take on the additional duties of food runners. At larger restaurants, however, this demarcation between server, host, and food runner provides the structure to keep a larger-scale operation moving.  

I spoke with a food runner named Jane (name changed upon request, so she could speak freely), who works at a national restaurant group’s Brooklyn location (the vibe: Memphis-style wall art, craft burgers, and a big brunch scene). At Jane’s restaurant, all the members of staff, with the exception of management and floor captains, are paid the hourly NYC minimum wage plus a percentage of the tip pool. Bartenders and servers are at the higher end of the tip pool, while food runners and barbacks receive the smallest percentage of those tips. This tip ratio is further complicated by the high volume of takeout orders. “I would say that a quarter of the restaurant’s daily revenue comes from the app orders,” she says, “My workload has changed a lot in the past year because of an increased Uber Eats [presence].” She says that arranging to-go orders can be a time-consuming task that disrupts her dine-in workflow demands, especially when it comes to packaging and labeling orders (especially large, complex orders for corporate catering). She hopes that runners will soon start receiving a higher percentage of the tip pool, given the additional workload of packing to-go orders and liaising with busy delivery drivers. Recently, a customer came to pick up an online order, but tipped with cash in person. Thankfully, the team’s instinct, she says, was to give a portion of that money to the runner, who went through extensive lengths to package the unique order. 

The major influx of delivery orders also impacts the experience for those dining in. “It’s a lot more [intense] than you might think, and slows down service for dine-in customers, too. We have talked with management about it twice,” she says, explaining that the runners believe more compensation should be reflected in either an increased share in tips or an hourly pay bump. “Each time, [management] is sympathetic. But nothing has been done.” Instead, she alleges that management has struggled to enact the clearest short-term solution: occasionally switching off Uber Eats. “We’ll ask them to turn it off when we’re overwhelmed with orders, but they keep pushing us harder. We’ll do it ourselves, but we know they’re watching and have cameras. When the managers leave, we turn it off,” she says, adding that she especially feels for the cooks. “The kitchen also can’t handle it.”

Given the increased cost of living and recession indicators in the United States right now, some restaurant owners and operators hesitate to turn down, or simply turn off, any opportunities for more revenue. Markus Dorfmann has been overseeing operations for Aurora Restaurant Group since 2008 (notably, for the eponymous Aurora, an Italian restaurant that opened in 2003 in Brooklyn), and spoke with me about how his teams manage the balancing act of dine-in and third-party app orders. “To be honest, overloading would be great for us,” he says by phone. “Restaurants in general, we just strive to have as much business as possible. So in a way, I understand [never turning off app orders]. But when those delivery orders make everything too busy for us, the manager will just pause it for a short period of time so we can catch up. We have no problem doing that.”  

When Aurora opened 23 years ago, Dorfmann says that the waterfront-adjacent Williamsburg location, now one of the most expensive and rapidly developing stretches in the city, felt like a gamble. “Back then, the rent was $2,500 a month,” he says, “The reason it has a small kitchen was because the feeling was very much, Oh man, is anyone going to come here?” But come they did: Decades later, the vine-covered, red brick corner restaurant is a neighborhood fixture. When the pandemic hit, third-party food app services were definitely helpful, but no replacement for dine-in customers and natural foot traffic. “I think there’s this idea that the apps changed everything,” says Dorfmann. “It was definitely helpful, but today it is by no means a significant chunk of the business that we do.” Over the years, Dorfmann has considered remodeling the restaurant’s dining room to accommodate higher order volumes, but says it just doesn’t seem physically feasible or necessary. “There’s only so much you can do with a space,” he says, “You set up a kitchen for a certain volume. Obviously on weekends it gets busier, but the amount of people that we have in the kitchen is always kind of the same. [Third-party] delivery apps are kind of like the icing on the cake, but not our [core] business. We have to look at our priorities.” As of right now, those priorities steer away from overloading the bandwidth of kitchen and food runners. 

Aurora is just one example of a restaurant that predated delivery apps and then integrated them into its operations. But what about restaurants that opened once apps were already ubiquitous? I spoke with Kal Pant of the cozy, family-owned Indian restaurant Spice Room in Denver, Colorado. Pant opened the first of his restaurant’s four locations in 2017, and since then it’s become a local standout (as seen on Eater Denver). “These third-party apps were [clear] avenues for more sales, but also helpful for advertising,” he tells me by phone, “Then the pandemic happened, and suddenly everyone switched to online ordering.” He says that third-party app ordering peaked for the Spice Room in 2023, but that even before then, Pant was mindful of the strenuous impacts it could have on food runners, as well as dine-in customers. 

For him, the solution is simple: When the restaurant is overloaded, switch the third-party app orders off. “It’s a balance. It not only is creating this extra work [for the food runners],” he says, “but [managers] should realize that when you’re telling an in-person group, ‘I’m sorry, it’s going to be a 20-minute or 40-minute wait,’ because you’re [clogged] with app orders, you’re losing the people standing right in front of you that made the actual effort to come to your restaurant.” 

Pant also fears that the pandemic may have worsened a disconnect between diners and their food. “They’re used to swiping on a phone, and someone dropping it at their door. They don’t know who prepared it, or what it takes to run a restaurant. It’s why I will always give second preference to third-party app customers. I don’t want to say they’re less of a customer, but I’m very [committed] to my customers and team here at the [physical] location.” If Pant were to overlook the strains that those third-party apps have on his own team, he says that the restaurant’s service and, ultimately, customer trust would suffer. “Ignore it now, and it will catch up with you later.”

Restaurants are a complex, and at times ruthless, ecosystem. Even the most fine-tuned operation must occasionally adapt to broken equipment, budget issues, and a customer who wants you to scoop out all the insides of the bagel before you toast it. Even so, even “classic” pressures of the job are not without nuance, and require adaptation and evolution to meet changes in the industry. Food runners in this shifting landscape are increasingly in need of support, whether that means temporarily switching off apps or implementing pay increases, or beyond that, even an open-mindedness to restructuring to accommodate a higher order volume or the establishment of a ghost kitchen. 

What shouldn’t happen, Dormann tells me, is a failure to seriously consider how all these delivery orders affect your team on a granular level. Part of Aurora’s decades-old success, he says, is due to the fact that it knows what kind of restaurant it is (“we’re known for our [physical] location”) and places neither its identity nor its workers in jeopardy. 

In spite of her fluctuating morale, Jane remains optimistic. “I know I’m not the only food runner experiencing this in the industry. And I do think my managers mean it when they say they want to help,” she says, “But I also think they’re under pressure from their own bosses who just want more money.” In that light, perhaps this conundrum isn’t tangled up in untrodden territory; maybe it’s just another symptom of what happens a restaurant’s increasingly fraught needs for revenue threaten its brick-and-mortar, emotional center — as Pant would say, you may lose sight of the people who are standing right in front of you.

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A version of this post originally appeared in Eater Today, which spotlights the freshest news and stories from across the food world every day. Subscribe now.

I’ve never really liked the Resy interface. It’s functional when I know exactly where I want to eat and when, and can therefore go directly to the restaurant’s Resy page and select a time, but God forbid my search has to be any more advanced or flexible than that. 

Dinner for two at 6:30 p.m. on a Wednesday night, anywhere in North Brooklyn or Lower Manhattan? Well, tough luck: Restaurants that I know exist at a specific intersection and that I know are on Resy (I know this because I can go to their individual bookings pages and see that they have availability at that exact time on that exact night) fail to populate on the map, or on the platform’s list of available venues. (“It only ever shows me sushi restaurants?” said one colleague, when I verified that this was, in fact, a common experience and not a skill issue.) And yet, what’s that they say about “the devil you know”? 

In New York City, here’s what it feels like to make a reservation now (especially if I’m trying to go to a relatively new, relatively in-demand restaurant). Let’s say that as a starting point, I would like to go to our 2025 Best New Restaurant Bong, which is on Resy. Predictably, there’s still not a table to be seen before 9 p.m., which is the very latest I’d consider going to dinner. Hmm, I might think. What else is on my to-eat list? Perhaps the hype over Wild Cherry has died down? That doesn’t come up on Resy, because the Google search that follows tells me that it’s actually on OpenTable, as with Riad Nasr and Lee Hanson’s other restaurants. OpenTable surfaces zero open tables; the hype has not died down. 

So, how about Adda? It’s been a while and I haven’t checked out the new location. Last I tried, Adda was on Resy. But then, wait, there’s that email I got a few months ago telling me that “booking looks different now,” because the restaurant has moved to DoorDash Reservations, powered by SevenRooms. A secret third thing! I don’t have that app, nor do I care to download it. 

That reminds me: A similar email appeared in my inbox last week from the Italian restaurant Swoony’s. “Book a table through our website or Google Reserve,” it told me, both options of which appear to also be powered by SevenRooms. As if reservations weren’t already hard enough to get based on availability alone, we must now seemingly keep track of several apps simultaneously and have a mental index of which one each restaurant uses — woof! When did the very act of making a reservation or finding one get so tedious, requiring all this cross-referencing and Google searching and the downloading of so many separate apps? 

For this user-experience hell, we can blame only the continued reservation wars. It was hard enough to keep track a few years ago, when waves of cool restaurants started making the switch from Resy to OpenTable in late 2024, wooed by the latter’s promises of revitalized tech (and, as the rumors go, compelling financial incentives as well) as it tried to regain cultural relevance. Now, the idea of the status-conferring reservations platform has fully gone out the window: It’s like every restaurant is ping-ponging around ever more platforms as companies try to get in on the reservations game. 

In September 2025, food-delivery platform DoorDash announced its entry into the niche as well, following the company’s acquisition of the reservations platform SevenRooms a few months earlier. In NYC, DoorDash has since scored in-demand restaurants such as the entire Unapologetic Foods group, which includes the aforementioned Adda and the trendy Semma.

And while SevenRooms grows its list of restaurants, Resy has also made moves to bulk up its portfolio. Earlier this year, Amex announced that it was folding Tock into Resy, ending Tock’s existence as a standalone brand but adding about 8,000 venues to Resy’s offerings. In June, Expedite’s Kristen Hawley, who’s been at the forefront of restaurant tech coverage, reported that Amex is now in the process of acquiring European reservations platform TheFork, which could put it ahead of OpenTable in terms of its number of restaurants globally. (Despite OpenTable’s diminished cool factor amid Resy’s rise to prominence, the company has boasted massive reach, with more than 60,000 restaurants using it.)

There are, it should be said, some upsides here, especially since one company holding the lion’s share of the reservations market is objectively bad for restaurant operators. More booking platforms means restaurateurs can now pick and choose from a marketplace of options as opposed to feeling locked into one of two. And as Eater NY’s Melissa McCart put it, the increased competition between companies has also meant some new perks for diners, such as exclusive restaurant offerings and special access to restaurants, though these are typically tethered to having specific credit cards.

But speaking purely from the point of view of the diner experience, especially as someone without a fancy credit card, it feels a little bit like another form of enshittification. Just as I can no longer rely on the first page of a Google search to find the very specific thing I’m looking for, I can no longer go to my trusted reservations app and seamlessly find the reservation I want. Despite Google’s increasingly obvious flaws, this system can push us back into an overreliance on Google, which is something I’ve also grown very resentful of in recent months, for similar enshittification reasons. 

This is now the predictable tech trajectory: Tech companies get everyone hooked on something (cheap rideshares, cheap food delivery, easy reservations) and then make the experience worse, harder, or paywalled. While I might have more capacity and patience than most people to remember that Lei and Bridges are on Resy but that Sunn’s and Demo are on OpenTable (and all of those examples are with a heavy, implied “for now”), I can say with some certainty that most people would rather devote that mental space to literally anything else.

Perhaps there’s a lesson to be learned from all of this. Perhaps, as with downloading more dating apps in pursuit of more suitors, most of whom have grown flaky and flighty from the tendency to do the same thing, there is a limit to how much one can play the field. Perhaps my frustration with app-switching and Google searching is a sign to stop and look at what’s already in my roster, on the app with the flaws I have already come to accept — at least until those restaurants make the switch to another one.

Plus, there’s always the Eater app, which now offers the ability to book reservations across multiple platforms without having to hunt for them.

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