First Table is the best-known restaurant booking platform in New Zealand, and it’s done genuine good for NZ hospitality by making early dining bookings accessible and by putting the concept of structured off-peak dining on the map. I’m not going to pretend it doesn’t exist or that it hasn’t been useful. But First Table and LocalFeed are built on fundamentally different models, and the differences matter for venues trying to decide how to manage their bookings.
How First Table Works
First Table operates on a straightforward model: diners pay a set fee (around $10-12 per booking) to access a 50% discount on food for the first table at a restaurant in a specific time slot. The restaurant controls when the First Table slot is available but must honour the 50% food discount as a condition of listing.
For diners, the appeal is obvious: significant discount, discovery of new venues, genuine value if they’re willing to eat early. For venues, the value proposition is filling a specific early slot that would otherwise be empty. The economics: the diner pays the platform fee, the restaurant takes a 50% food revenue hit on the first table but fills a slot.
STAT: A First Table booking for a table of two at a restaurant with a $60/head average spend generates approximately $60 in food revenue for the venue instead of $120 — a $60 discount that the restaurant absorbs in exchange for the filled early slot. The diner pays First Table $10-12 for access to this.
How LocalFeed Works
LocalFeed is commission-free. Venues list their own offers — they decide what to put up, when, at what price, under what conditions. There’s no mandatory 50% discount. The venue designs the offer that makes sense for them: a set prix fixe, a specific menu, a particular time slot at a price that works. LocalFeed charges $10/week after the venue’s first 20 bookings, regardless of booking volume or value.
The diner pays the venue’s asking price. The venue receives the full revenue. The platform takes no commission on the food.
The Structural Differences That Matter
The mandatory discount structure is First Table’s fundamental trade-off. It fills early slots (good) but does so at a consistent 50% food revenue cost (expensive). A venue using First Table regularly for early slots is training a portion of its customer base to expect 50% off their food — and that expectation can carry into how those customers perceive the venue at full price.
LocalFeed doesn’t mandate any discount. A venue might choose to offer a modest early-dining incentive — a complimentary glass of wine, a slightly lower set menu price — but it’s their choice, calibrated to what works for their business.
“The difference between a venue-designed offer and a mandatory 50% discount is the difference between strategy and subsidy. First Table is a subsidy. LocalFeed is strategy.”
STAT: A venue doing 10 First Table bookings per week at the $60/head example above is absorbing $600/week in discounts — $31,200 per year. LocalFeed’s annual cost for a venue doing 10+ bookings per week is $520. The cost differential is significant even before accounting for the discount.
What First Table Does Well
First Table’s diner audience is real and engaged. People who use First Table regularly are specifically interested in early dining and are willing to plan ahead to access it. The platform has invested in building this audience over years, and for venues that have slow early slots and are willing to honour the discount model, it delivers genuine cover count.
The platform is also well-known in NZ — a venue listing on First Table benefits from recognition that LocalFeed, as a newer platform, is still building. For venues where early-slot discovery is the primary challenge, First Table’s audience is a real asset.
NOTE: If a venue’s primary challenge is filling 5:30pm on weeknights and they’re willing to accept the 50% food discount as the cost, First Table delivers on that specific problem. LocalFeed is not the right tool if you’re only looking for that specific solution — it’s the right tool if you want commission-free booking across all your offer types.
The Data Ownership Question
First Table owns the customer data from First Table bookings. The venue gets the booking information but not the diner’s broader profile as a First Table user. LocalFeed gives the venue the booking information as their own data — the customer relationship belongs to the venue.
For venues building long-term customer relationships and direct communication channels, this distinction is meaningful. The customer who books through LocalFeed is a customer the venue can build on. The customer who books through First Table is a First Table customer who happened to eat at your venue.
Which Is Right for Your Venue
The honest answer: they’re different tools for different purposes. If you want to fill early slots specifically and you’re comfortable with the 50% discount model as the price, First Table is a proven option. If you want commission-free booking across all your offer types, full control of your deals, and the ability to build your own customer data, LocalFeed is the answer.
Many NZ venues will find value in both. The question is understanding what each costs and what each delivers before you treat them as equivalent.
FACT: Zero commission on food revenue. $10/week after 20 bookings. 75% of no-show fees go to the venue.
LocalFeed and First Table are both NZ hospitality platforms trying to fill tables. The models are different. The cost to venues is different. The customer relationship each creates is different. LocalFeed is the commission-free option — built for NZ venues that want full control of their offers and their margins.