Good morning, Broadsheet readers! The pay gap has widened for the first time since 2003, former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison asked for no prison time, and OpenTable’s CEO competes with Resy to book tables for the hottest restaurants. Have a terrific Thursday.
– Table for two. Restaurant reservation culture is out of control. There are black markets and bots, with diners shelling out hundreds of dollars just to secure tables, especially in cities like New York. New York lawmakers even passed legislation to curb the phenomenon.
But Debby Soo, the CEO of OpenTable, says some of that is a myth. “You can still find reservations at the hottest, hardest-to-get restaurants if you are flexible with timing,” Soo says. “This narrative out there that it’s so hard—sometimes I don’t think it necessarily serves restaurants because I don’t want to discourage diners from trying.”
OpenTable launched 25 years ago as an early player to the restaurant tech space. Today, the reservation-booking platform is owned by the $21 billion company Booking Holdings, also the parent to Kayak and Priceline. As competitor Resy, owned by American Express, has come in and cornered the market on New York’s trendy restaurant scene, OpenTable dominates tourist-friendly spots as part of a travel-based strategy. OpenTable has 60,000 restaurants on its platform compared to Resy’s 16,000.
Soo, a Google alum, spent a decade at Kayak before moving over to run OpenTable four years ago. She arrived amid the pandemic. “The P&L was in shambles because we waived all our fees for restaurants,” she says.
OpenTable adjusted a one-size-fits-all pricing model to offer different tiers for different kinds of restaurants, like a 500-seat midtown restaurant that relies on marketing to fill its tables (OpenTable encourages travelers booking flights on Priceline to book restaurant reservations next, for example) or a 50-seat restaurant that never struggles to fill seats and only needs basic restaurant tech.
Once the industry made it out from the depths of the pandemic, Soo realized that OpenTable had some catching up to do. “The company was operating perhaps not as quickly as we needed to in the restaurant tech landscape,” she says. “Competition had come in.”
While diners and critics sometimes complain about the rise of technology at restaurants—like QR code menus—Soo argues that tech can improve the in-person experience. “The days of picking up your phone and calling a restaurant trying to get a reservation are over. Oftentimes, restaurants do not even have someone to pick up that phone,” she says. “You could argue that makes the experience less personal, but from what we see it frees up staff to really make those moments when you are actually in the restaurant special” with notes in the platform about which wine a customer ordered last time they visited, for example.
Soo says OpenTable has increased restaurants it categorizes as “celebrated and awarded” by 28% year over year. She argues that OpenTable’s travel connections are a strength. “We are not a credit card company. We are a hospitality company,” she says. “Our customers are our restaurants. Our customers are not our card holders.”
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
The Broadsheet is Fortune’s newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women. Today’s edition was curated by Nina Ajemian. Subscribe here.
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Wider gap. For the first time in over 20 years, the gender pay gap has widened. U.S. Census data shows that median full-time female workers in 2023 earned 83 cents for every dollar earned by men; in 2022, women earned 84% of what the median man working full time made. Axios
- Progress, not history. Sen. Sarah McBride (D–Del.) won the Democratic primary for her state’s only seat in the House of Representatives. If McBride wins the election, she will become the first openly transgender person in Congress. “I’m not running to make history,” she said. “I’m running to make historic progress for Delawareans.” AP
- Shutting down. Fearless Fund is shutting down its Strivers Grant program, which provided $20,000 to small businesses with Black female owners. This closure follows the American Alliance for Equal Rights’ lawsuit against the fund that alleged discrimination against non-Black founders. A court ruled that Fearless Fund’s contract likely violated the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which prevents racial discrimination in contracts. TechCrunch
- No prison, please. Attorneys for Caroline Ellison, former CEO of trading firm Alameda Research, filed a memo requesting no jail time for her role in FTX’s collapse in 2022. The memo argues that Ellison’s poor decisions were influenced by her relationship with FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried. Bankman-Fried’s spokesperson declined to comment. Ellison’s hearing will take place on Sept. 24. Fortune
MOVERS AND SHAKERS
Meadows Behavioral Healthcare, a behavioral health care programs network, named Kate Renwick-Espinosa chief executive officer. Most recently, she was president of VSP Vision Care.
Novotech, a biotech contract research organization, appointed Yooni Kim as managing director for APAC. Previously, she was the company’s vice president of global clinical services.
Homrich Berg, a registered investment adviser, named Joanna Irwin chief marketing officer. Most recently, she was global CMO at Randstad.
ON MY RADAR
Demi Moore and the subversive politics of the naked body New York Times
How networks worked together to get Alex Morgan’s NWSL finale broader reach Sports Business Journal
Maya Rudolph on her mother era, reviving Kamala Harris for ‘SNL’ and why her ‘zero-f—s hormones have kicked in’ Variety
PARTING WORDS
“To have these conversations with [my daughter]—women’s issues, bodily autonomy, misogyny—that’s kind of where I’m at with this.”
— Actress Amy Adams on making her new movie Nightbitch, written and directed by Marielle Heller
