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If securing a last-minute dinner reservation in New York feels like a competitive sport, Daniel Gendelman has been quietly working on a workaround. Gendelman, the founder of the notoriously selective dating app Raya and the creator of Places, a curated travel and dining platform built by the same team, designed one feature in particular for nights when everything looks booked: Table Tonight.
During times of year when restaurant demand goes into overdrive (ahem, holidays), Table Tonight is meant to reduce some of the friction of last-minute planning. The feature aggregates real-time reservation availability across multiple platforms, allowing users to see and book same-day openings in one place instead of bouncing between various apps, websites and waitlists.
If you’ve ever spent an evening refreshing Resy only to give up and take whatever 9:45 pm reservation you can snag, the appeal is obvious. Table Tonight surfaces tables that are actually available right now, including cancellations that might otherwise disappear unnoticed. If you’re more interested in saving your eleventh-hour dinner plans over long-range planning, it’s made for you.
What also distinguishes Table Tonight from standard reservation tools is its emphasis on curation. The app doesn’t pull in every restaurant with an open slot, but instead focuses on vetted spots and adds brief description next to each listing, including why it’s worth going, what kind of experience to expect and what makes it stand out.
That curatorial layer is a result of Places’ network of contributors, which draws recommendations from chefs, designers and cultural figures like Eric Ripert, David Gelb, Laura Kim and Olivia Wilde. The result is fewer influencer-heavy “hot spots” and more genuinely good rooms that still deliver. Table Tonight positions itself as a shortcut to finding those places, especially on nights when plans come together at the last minute.
While Table Tonight lives inside the Places app, it has become one of its most practical features for city diners. Places was initially available only to Raya members, but is now available via annual subscription, meaning you can always grab a good table, right when you need it.