Hey everyone, this is Derrick, the creator of The Loft Club.
We noticed a common pattern when we eat out. A cursory Yelp search, perhaps a cross reference dining guides, and finally making the reservation (via OpenTable/SeatMe/phone), only to find out that there aren't any tables left. We then wish we had done all this couple weeks back, but that's hardly practical.
The Loft Club removes all that hassle. Trust us to do the research, and we'll make the reservations for you every two weeks. We've started this small project to scratch our own itch for now, and we'd love to hear your feedback!
From a city perspective, Chicago should be added of course. Beyond that you should have the ability to mark restaurants, food types, and neighborhoods as no gos or desired (what if i hate chinese food, don't want to go to hyde park, or need gluten free...so basically take the different categories in yelp and add those in as well for both positive and negative). At least that's off the top of my head. Another concept would be as opposed to the current scheduling to allow me to add when i want to go in a calendaring format and let you fill it (this tuesday, next wednesday...nothing the week after, etc)
Thanks for the feedback! We are actively adding a dining preference feature, so hang tight for that.
The first iteration of the product actually had that kind of flexible scheduling in place, but we decided to simplify it for launch. We do want to add it back once demand scales up!
Honest feedback - looks like you're trying to charge me for something that's free. Calling a restaurant to make a reservation is not that big of a hassle.
But consistently planning a date night with my beautiful wife is.
If I'm planning to drop $250-300/mth on a couple of great dinners, then another $10 to add an element of surprise and save me from all the research and bookings is well worth it.
I wonder where Brisbane Australia is on their roll-out schedule... We have multiple nice restaurants now, and thankfully both are now open later than 8.30pm.
Thanks Jacob. It's our dream to be able to roll it out in Brisbane, but given the size of our team and how young the project is, it won't happen quite so soon :)
Much like the concierge services (ie Magic) out there, we want The Loft Club to provide simplify people's habits of dining out. The added element of a pleasant surprise - as you mentioned - is something we want to focus on too as we build out the service.
This might seem weird- but to me, it has the same appeal as television: the selection is already made.
Choosing a restaurant to eat at is such a small barrier, but it feels huge (kinda like picking an episode on NetFlix).
I definitely see the appeal in getting an e-mail saying: "Hobotron, a table for 2 is reserved at Lait de Tétine this Thursday at 7PM." and when you show up your preferred cocktail is already on the table.
Could partner up with Uber/Limo/Whatever to provide rides to/from in the event you wish to indulge to excess.
This is the problem with ideas like loft. A lot of people think it is a good idea. They give feedback about what they would like to see in a service like this and consider pretty 'neat' at best. Then it pops off the front page and they never consider it again. Making reservations is easy. People will probably not "love" this service, because it isn't even close to essential. ITT a lot of people provide feedback about a product they will never use giving the founders a false sense of feature and product demand.
This should be free. They're either passing up on the money restaurants would pay to bump numbers on slow nights or getting you coming and going, as it were. (There's certainly the possibility that they want to stay ethically clean, but the cynic in me says a random startup I know nothing about is, well, a cash strapped startup).
This isn't to say that they shouldn't take restaurant money, there's certainly precedent for it and people love Yelp. Being transparent (or simply keeping quality up) would be a good check.
I'm someone who eats out a lot, and in the price range of what you mentioned ($50/person). I've done the Yelp search/reservation two-step many times in other cities besides my own.
My honest feedback is that this service doesn't solve a problem for me. Most of the time, the key to any reservation for me is timing. My schedule can be a little volatile (not a lot), but two weeks ahead of time doesn't solve an issue for me.
Here's what would be helpful to me: based on my preferences, shoot me a message today about an opening somewhere tomorrow. Make it a push notification, and let me reply -- if yes, book it.
TLC is going to have a nice database of very weird people who would use a service like this to make sure they get to go out to a fancy restaurant twice a month, by themselves...
Now that would be a compelling reason to use such an app, and might even be good for restaurants, too. After all, if a restaurant could take all those tiny parties of one or two and group them together into a handful of larger tables, they'd then be able to better maximize the number of guests per table (instead of wasting seats that could otherwise be used for parties of 3/4/5+).
It would also be an interesting social experiment. The potential benefits are pretty substantial for those who have recently moved into a particular city; instead of fumbling around aimlessly for a new social circle, one could instead sign up for this sort of service and be randomly introduced to all sorts of folks on a semi-weekly basis.
And I don't like this idea. I want to choose the restaurant I'm going to, we have amazing tools now like Trip Advisor to get an idea of the quality, it's pretty easy to find something YOU want.
When I clicked the link, there was an HN special for $9.99/mo. I thought to myself "that's a little expensive for making 2 phone calls a month, but what the heck, maybe the surprise will be fun." I went to sign up, got through to the credit card phase, and now the price is $19.99.
On top of the feel of bait and switch (although I know this was certainly just a bug), that price feels insane. This is a potentially fun idea to me, or at least certainly something I'd be willing to try for a month, but to be blunt, I think that price point is ludicrous.
Sorry you experienced that! We just discovered a bug that didn't persist the offer to the end in a minority of cases, and it's now been fixed. And thanks for your feedback about our prices. Our price at launch is actually derived from other services in the reservations space (ie Table8, TableSaavy), but we're always evaluating our price point.
Cool! Thanks for reaching out via email, I appreciate the effort.
I'll definitely give this a shot at the discounted price. I really do like the idea, I just don't think I'd be willing to pay the (current) full cost. Who knows though, maybe I'll sing a different tune after a few reservations.
You're assuming that searching restaurants on yelp and then booking is a hassle. It isn't for me and for most part people I know who eat out regularly. It's almost always you go there with your friends or significant other and wait at the bar (get drinks etc) and then get the table.
To be honest, I might have booked like 3 times via Opentable in a year.
I am sure there will be a small section of people wanting to do this but I doubt you will be able to scale to make it a operational business. In addition, it is very expensive.
Not to be a negative HN'er, but this just feels like something people in SF/SV will go crazy about, but will not resonate/scale outside of SF/SV. It's not solving a problem significant enough for the cost. The small subset of people that would pay for this, probably have more efficient means of achieving the same end result (personal assistant, virtual assistant, etc).
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 71.9 ms ] threadWe noticed a common pattern when we eat out. A cursory Yelp search, perhaps a cross reference dining guides, and finally making the reservation (via OpenTable/SeatMe/phone), only to find out that there aren't any tables left. We then wish we had done all this couple weeks back, but that's hardly practical.
The Loft Club removes all that hassle. Trust us to do the research, and we'll make the reservations for you every two weeks. We've started this small project to scratch our own itch for now, and we'd love to hear your feedback!
Our selection of restaurants include both well and lesser known joints - good food exists in all places, and we want to help people discover that.
The first iteration of the product actually had that kind of flexible scheduling in place, but we decided to simplify it for launch. We do want to add it back once demand scales up!
The other 5%, on the other hand, is where most of the money and VC's happen to live.
If I'm planning to drop $250-300/mth on a couple of great dinners, then another $10 to add an element of surprise and save me from all the research and bookings is well worth it.
I wonder where Brisbane Australia is on their roll-out schedule... We have multiple nice restaurants now, and thankfully both are now open later than 8.30pm.
Much like the concierge services (ie Magic) out there, we want The Loft Club to provide simplify people's habits of dining out. The added element of a pleasant surprise - as you mentioned - is something we want to focus on too as we build out the service.
Happy to chat more in person, DM me @derrickko.
Choosing a restaurant to eat at is such a small barrier, but it feels huge (kinda like picking an episode on NetFlix).
I definitely see the appeal in getting an e-mail saying: "Hobotron, a table for 2 is reserved at Lait de Tétine this Thursday at 7PM." and when you show up your preferred cocktail is already on the table.
Could partner up with Uber/Limo/Whatever to provide rides to/from in the event you wish to indulge to excess.
This isn't to say that they shouldn't take restaurant money, there's certainly precedent for it and people love Yelp. Being transparent (or simply keeping quality up) would be a good check.
My honest feedback is that this service doesn't solve a problem for me. Most of the time, the key to any reservation for me is timing. My schedule can be a little volatile (not a lot), but two weeks ahead of time doesn't solve an issue for me.
Here's what would be helpful to me: based on my preferences, shoot me a message today about an opening somewhere tomorrow. Make it a push notification, and let me reply -- if yes, book it.
TLC is going to have a nice database of very weird people who would use a service like this to make sure they get to go out to a fancy restaurant twice a month, by themselves...
It would also be an interesting social experiment. The potential benefits are pretty substantial for those who have recently moved into a particular city; instead of fumbling around aimlessly for a new social circle, one could instead sign up for this sort of service and be randomly introduced to all sorts of folks on a semi-weekly basis.
It's Monsieur.
And I don't like this idea. I want to choose the restaurant I'm going to, we have amazing tools now like Trip Advisor to get an idea of the quality, it's pretty easy to find something YOU want.
On top of the feel of bait and switch (although I know this was certainly just a bug), that price feels insane. This is a potentially fun idea to me, or at least certainly something I'd be willing to try for a month, but to be blunt, I think that price point is ludicrous.
I'll definitely give this a shot at the discounted price. I really do like the idea, I just don't think I'd be willing to pay the (current) full cost. Who knows though, maybe I'll sing a different tune after a few reservations.
To be honest, I might have booked like 3 times via Opentable in a year.
I am sure there will be a small section of people wanting to do this but I doubt you will be able to scale to make it a operational business. In addition, it is very expensive.