An invite-only app called Spot is using AI agents to hunt for hard-to-get New York restaurant reservations, promising a more controlled alternative to the personal bots that have gotten some diners locked out of booking platforms.
Upstarts Media’s Alex Konrad says he joined Spot in May and used it to book 12 dinners he had struggled to secure otherwise, including tables at Le Veau d’Or, Theodora and Smithereens. His account is a firsthand review of the service, not an independent audit of its technology or success rate.
Spot currently operates only in New York. Its $15 Lite and $50 premium tiers let members search selected restaurants across dates, watch for openings and access a weekly release of tables. Konrad paid for the premium plan but wrote that the cheaper tier includes many of the same features.
Spot separates searching from the final booking
Co-founders Brian Wagner and Andreas Larsen told Upstarts that Spot monitors reservation availability using public online data and its own agents rather than repeatedly checking through each customer’s booking account. The service involves a user’s account only when it is ready to complete a reservation.
That design is meant to avoid the aggressive request loops that have triggered bans elsewhere. Recent users of general-purpose agents described asking the software to keep trying for a table at 4 Charles Prime Rib, only to have Resy restrict their accounts after excessive activity.
Spot’s founders say their system has not produced those bans for users, but booking platforms could still change their terms, hide availability or block the company’s agents. Wagner also acknowledged that rapid growth could overwhelm both Spot and its booking partners.
The founders are deliberately limiting growth
Spot has relied on word of mouth and invite codes since February. The founders told Upstarts that the service works best when new members secure a difficult reservation during their first week, while regular users tend to book at least twice a month.
That creates a tension for the business. More members bring subscription revenue, but the available supply of coveted tables does not expand at the same rate. Spot’s premium tier is capped, and the founders said they may prefer a smaller revenue-supported company to a venture-backed push for rapid scale.
The service also remains dependent on cooperation it does not control. Restaurants and reservation platforms may see value in filling cancellations, but they also have reasons to resist automated tools that give some diners a technological advantage.
For now, Spot is evidence that restaurant-booking agents can be packaged as a consumer service instead of a one-off coding project. Whether it can preserve that access as it grows will matter more than any single hard-won table.
