The book
How reservation drops work
Every restaurant sets its own clock. Nothing below is a promise that a table will be there, and none of it is an instruction to cheat the book.
Resy
There is no single citywide Resy drop. Each restaurant chooses how many days ahead it opens, and at what local time. In these five cities a common pattern is a morning release, often 9:00 or 10:00, for a date a set number of days out. Some calendars instead add a new day around midnight. Both patterns change, so the restaurant page on Midnight Table only states a time we could source. Otherwise it says to check the platform.
Resy Notify asks the app to tell you if a time opens. It is a notification, not a hold. Someone else can book that table first. At busy rooms the new inventory can be gone in seconds. Being notified is not the same as being in.
OpenTable
Many OpenTable rooms use a rolling window, often somewhere between two weeks and a couple of months, and a few go much further out. Some reveal a new day at a set local time. Others show the whole window as soon as you look. Notify and waitlist tools on a listing send an alert. They do not reserve the table in your name until you complete the booking.
Tock
Tock is common for prepaid tastings. A room might release a whole month on a calendar date, such as the first of the month, or it might use a rolling window. You usually pay when you book, and the listing’s cancellation terms are the ones that count. Read them before you pay. A ticket is your reservation only after checkout succeeds.
SevenRooms
Some restaurant groups book on their own site through SevenRooms. The window and the release time belong to that restaurant. There is no public citywide SevenRooms clock. If we haven’t confirmed the time, we don’t guess it.
Phone-only rooms
A few notable rooms still take the book by phone, or mainly by phone. The useful fact is when the line opens, in which time zone, and how far ahead they will book. Call then, in your own name. Call-In Concierge is the $29/mo add-on where we place that call for you, as an AI assistant, for up to five of those rooms. It is not a guaranteed table.
Tactics that stay fair
- Learn the published window and the local time zone, and be logged in before that minute.
- Have a second and third room. The first book often misses.
- Use Notify as a backup, not as the plan.
- For phone rooms, call when the office opens. Speak your own name.
- Watching a public booking page for a cancellation is fine.
We don’t use bots, we don’t hold tables, and we don’t buy or sell reservations. In New York, reselling a reservation without the restaurant’s consent is illegal. It is a bad idea everywhere else, too.