As a student you can have a part-time job in a restaurant, but the American Alex Eiser saw a much more lucrative job in the catering industry. He reserves tables in popular restaurants in New York and resells them. Last year he earned 65,000 euros.
In American cities, residents often work long hours and live in small apartments, sometimes without even a fully equipped kitchen. Eating out is completely normal, and for popular restaurants it is better to make a reservation quickly.
New York Magazine describes how it works at Sailor restaurant in Fort Greene, where people log on to the establishment’s website every morning at 10:59 a.m., hoping to quickly secure a vacant spot when reservations for two weeks later start closing at 11 a.m. opened. “It’s just waiting, clicking and praying.” At the Italian eatery Roscioli, “New Yorkers risk their lives, beg, try to bribe staff and make pleas to get a table,” the magazine writes.
Anyway, a world of its own, and some people take advantage of that. At restaurants that do not accept reservations, people pay so-called row-sitters, who wait in line for them for hours and signal when it is their turn for a seat. Others see it as a sport to secure the most sought-after tables via reservation apps and then resell that reservation for the top price. Sometimes they have to pretend to be someone else – with a different email address or telephone number – because otherwise restaurants will not accept the reservation.
Pretending to be a woman
Alex Eisler, an applied mathematics student, is one of those resellers. He uses reservation sites, but also calls popular spots. At the Polo Bar they now recognize his voice on the telephone, he says. “So I have to use different accents. Sometimes I have to act like a girl and I put on a high-pitched voice. I also have a few accounts on booking sites with female names.”
He recently sold a lunch table at Maison Close for 800 euros, and a reservation for Carbone raised 980 euros. It is a lucrative business: last year he earned 65,000 euros from reselling reservations.
The buyer of the spot will be told under what name the reservation was made. This sometimes leads to some uncomfortable moments at the entrance of the restaurant, he describes New York Magazine, especially for people who are just dating. ‘Men are sometimes required to mention the names of other women and look for their telephone number – the name and number on the purchased reservation.’
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