How to eat out more often with Yumtable

Restaurants in Melbourne that take bookings are a rare and beautiful thing. Never more so than this time of the year when we haven’t quite worked out how many layers to put on, so we invariably end up overheated during the day and then freezing when the temperature drops 10C as the sun goes down. Huddling in a queue at 8pm when you are hangry and freezing is not how I like to spend my evenings.

I was pretty pleased then to hear about a new restaurant booking service – Yumtable.

Have you ever tried to call a restaurant during dinner service? It doesn’t work well does it? Either no one answers the phone, it goes to voicemail, or you can hardly hear the person on the other end because of the clinkety clack of dining noises. I used to work with a duty manager who used his best Miranda Priestley voice every time the phone range between 6 and 10, “I don’t understand why you think I have time to talk to you now.” Yes, he could do with a bit of Customer Service 101, but it really isn’t a good time for a chat.

Yumtable is an online or app-based booking service that allows you to book up to an hour before your dining time, allowing for last minute plans and no conversations with voicemail (or Miranda). If you are a little more organised and decide you want to eat somewhere the night before at 11:30pm you can sort that instantaneously too, no need to wait until they open for lunch the next day.

Want to eat out more often?

Even more exciting if you are a bargain hunter is that there are a bunch of restaurants that offer you a discount if you book through Yumtable. I am a bargain hunter. I used to lug an Entertainment book around with me just in case a last-minute dinner urge struck. This is so much simpler. You can get a discount of up to $50 off the total of your bill which is applied at the time of booking so you don’t have to have that awkward coupon conversation or lug that big ol’ book around with you. Plus, Yumtable is free to use!

Currently there are over 1800 restaurants Australia-wide that have signed up to Yumtable and it is so easy to book. You enter the postcode or suburb you want to dine in and the time and date that suits, Yumtable brings up a number of option in that suburb and the surrounding area. You can then filter your cuisine type, price range and even prioritise by the discount offered if you wish.

Marvellous.

I was invited to use the service by Yumtable and the deal was sweetened with a free meal but I didn’t have to write about it. I’m telling you about it because a) restaurant bookings are a wonderful thing and b) we all want to eat out more often and most of us can’t afford to eat out as often as we’d like. A quick search of the Yumtable listings around the inner suburbs of Melbourne brought up a heap of restaurants on my ‘Places to Eat’ list (yes, I’ll admit the list name still needs work). And when I mentioned it to my uber bargain hunting mum, well, she has already sent me a list of places we should go when I am up visiting her in Brisbane in June.

Yumtable, the best way to get more yum on your table.

My tagline, not theirs, they may even ask for a refund of my meal after that one.

Disclosure: I dined at a restaurant of my choice courtesy of Yumtable