Afternoon Peak for Restaurant Bookings

With up to 1,000 diners using Early Table to eat out each week, the team has been analysing the accumulated data.

Early Table website traffic peaks around 3pm on week days – as the working day begins to wind down. Most weekday bookings are for smaller groups of two to four, with colleagues and friends enjoying a post-work catch up. Restaurants can now offers tables for up to eight diners, and this is proving increasingly popular at weekends.

Early Table launched in April 2022 with "Dining Week", an initiative to encourage more people to eat out. Via EarlyTable.ie, diners pay €1 per person to  secure a reservation with up to 50% off their food bill for up to eight guests, in their choice of hundreds of restaurants nationwide.

The platform also makes it easy for participating restaurants to quickly add availability and decide discount levels, encouraging bookings and generating income at times when it is most needed. The average spend by Early Table diners, after discount, is €40 per person, when tables would otherwise sit empty.

The website now has over 15,000 registered subscribers.

The technology is simple to use, and being listed on Early Table is free. Feedback has also shown that the Early Table option of searching by availability encourages diners to discover new restaurants, locations and cuisines.

Early Table is the brainchild of its entrepreneur founder James Lenehan.

“Consumers and restaurants alike have really embraced this concept. We now generate at least €100,000 a month for our member restaurants,” he says.