Restaurant customers stand to be collateral damage in an inter-industry struggle between restaurants and big tech.
The challenge comes from dominant online restaurant reservation platform OpenTable, which already handles nearly half of all reservations. It is executing a power grab, attempting to control the remainder of the market.
Buried at the bottom of a recent company update is a requirement forcing restaurants to make their platform their “system of record” for reservations, table and guest management, and make all their inventory available on the OpenTable marketplace.
Operators will be forced to funnel all their inventory through one choke point, limiting their ability to manage bookings independently, or across multiple channels to reach as broad an audience as possible. The increased costs, lack of interoperability, and operational burden will make it impractical for restaurants to continue to use other platforms.
The edict hurts consumers in the end, not just the establishments they patronize.
As OpenTable’s dominance inevitably grows, it will have the ability to set prices and data policies as it sees fit. OpenTable has already come under fire for its data sharing practices.
Competition in digital reservation marketplaces matters because online visibility increasingly determines whether a business succeeds. When a dominant intermediary requires exclusive or near-exclusive participation, restaurants lose flexibility to experiment with emerging technologies, build direct relationships with customers, and negotiate better terms from competing providers.
History shows that innovation thrives when businesses can choose between multiple vendors rather than being locked into a single ecosystem that dictates the terms of participation.
Diminishing competition often results in rising prices and substandard service. Economists have long recognized that competitive markets encourage firms to innovate, improve customer experience, and keep costs under control.
By contrast, markets characterized by high switching costs and limited alternatives can create incentives for dominant firms to increase fees, restrict choice, or impose contractual requirements that would be difficult to sustain in a more competitive environment. Restaurant patrons bear these costs in the form of higher menu prices, reservation fees, or fewer dining options.
OpenTable’s new mandate is a sharp break from how others in the hospitality sector operate. When consumers shop for a flight, hotel room, or rental car, they can use third-party travel marketplaces like Expedia, or they can go directly to the company websites. Why should it be any different for restaurant customers?
Ironically, OpenTable’s parent company, the global travel agency Booking Holdings, embraces this multi-platform approach for those industries—allowing customers to shop around while still competing effectively.
The central question is whether dominant firms should be allowed to use their position to make competition more difficult. Federal regulators and state attorneys general have increasingly scrutinized industries through an antitrust lens, including digital platforms, reflecting a concern that market concentration can weaken entrepreneurship and consumer choice.
Restaurants face fierce competition, hiring challenges, and complex regulations around every corner. Recently, labor shortages, supply chain issues, tariffs, rent increases, and credit card processing fees have added to that load. Profit margins are well-known for being minimal, and an industry report shows that 42 percent of operators were not profitable last year.
Yet restaurants remain popular and are a vital part of community life. A 2024 national survey found that 55 percent of Americans prefer dining in restaurants over ordering takeout or delivery, a sharp increase from 43 percent the previous year. Dining out remains one of the most common forms of social recreation in America; family gatherings, celebrations, and community events often revolve around restaurants.
That role is in large part due to the thousands of entrepreneurs who remain in or enter the industry because they are passionate about hospitality, food, and serving their communities despite the challenges they face.
This is poignant, especially for rural and minority-owned establishments that have contributed to the American fabric by using the restaurant industry as an accessible path to economic advancement. America has benefited from how these entrepreneurs have turned hard work, family traditions, and community ties into economic opportunity.
Small businesses remain a huge cornerstone for the American economy, and restaurants exemplify it perfectly—seventy percent are single-location businesses, and the overwhelming majority employ fewer than fifty workers. They deserve the same protections afforded to every other sector of the American economy.
Owners should be free to choose the tools and partners that serve their businesses best, without fear that opting out of a platform would render them invisible.
And external stakeholders should be making it easier, not more difficult, for their partners to stay afloat. Policymakers should allow them to compete on a level playing field where quality, value, and customer service are what determine success.
Mario H. Lopez is president of the Hispanic Leadership Fund, a public policy advocacy organization that promotes liberty, opportunity, and prosperity for all.
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