This Michelin-starred restaurant host exposed OpenTable’s secret customer labels, and diners are not happy

A restaurant worker has shared some surprising news about OpenTable. The booking app is apparently tracking what people do when they eat out and sharing that information with restaurants. A lot of users are upset about this.

According to Bro Bible, Kat Menter works at a fancy Michelin-starred restaurant as a host. She posted a video on TikTok that more than 111,000 people have watched. In the video, she talks about something new her restaurant started getting last week. OpenTable began sending over notes about customers who make bookings through their app.

Menter says this Michelin-starred restaurant host exposed OpenTable’s secret customer labels after she saw the app was giving restaurants all kinds of details about their guests. The notes include things like what drinks people usually order, but they also have information about how much money people spend and how long they take to finish their meals.

Wait, so OpenTable is basically rating us now?

The notes that restaurants get can say different things about customers. Menter showed one example that listed certain drinks and then said the person orders those drinks a lot when eating out. But there are other types of labels too. She has seen ones that say someone is a “Frequent reviewer” or a “High Spender” who pays more money than most other OpenTable users.

Some of the labels are about how people act at restaurants. Menter saw notes saying someone has “Long turn times” and stays at restaurants longer than the typical OpenTable customer. She also says there is a label for people who cancel their bookings at the last minute, but she did not get a picture of that one.

Menter thinks OpenTable is pulling this information from all the different restaurants where someone has made a booking. She knows this because her own profile says she likes juice, and she showed that to her current workplace. But the funny thing is, her restaurant does not even have juice on the menu.

OpenTable has not come out and said anything directly about these notes. But if you look at their website, there is information about something called “Guest Intelligence” that started in October.

The website says this feature lets restaurants see how their customers eat, both at their own place and at other restaurants using OpenTable. It is supposed to help restaurants figure out who their important customers are and what those customers like.

A lot of people online are not happy about this whole thing. Many wrote comments saying they are worried about their privacy and whether restaurants might treat them differently based on these labels.

One user wrote, “Wait this is so intrusive, I’m appalled.” Another commenter questioned, “Does open table integrate with the POS? How the heck are they getting this data?” This is not the first time restaurant practices have drawn criticism from diners online.

Other people decided to joke about the situation instead. One joked, “Welcome to that one black mirror episode,” while another commented, “The dines longer is making me LIVID.” The controversy adds to growing concerns about how restaurants handle customer experiences.