When Restaurants Love Us Back

Loyalty apps offer perks to participating diners and can even take some of the sting out of the bill

- BY KATHLEEN SQUIRES

SOME LOOK skeptically on the intersection of hospitality and technology. Just ask the humans doing battle with reservation-booking bots to score tables. Yet a new generation of restaurant loyalty apps is appealing to diners with the promise of discounts and other rewards for their repeat business.

For the restaurants, loyalty apps are helping fill seats and encourage return visits. Jacob Weiner, general manager at LPM Restaurant & Bar in Miami, said that partnering with the Dorsia app "makes for a consistent and guaranteed revenue stream." Nick Amano-Dolan, general manager and beverage director of Trick Dog in San Francisco, likes the seamless, nowait payment system the app Blackbird offers customers. "There's nothing worse at a bar than when I want to close out my tab and it takes 20 minutes to pay and leave," he said.

Still, an increasingly crowded field makes it hard for even the savviest diner to keep up with the benefits on offer. Here's how to get the most out of three top restaurant loyalty apps.

Blackbird What It's For Payment, rewards, messaging restaurants directly for reservations and special requests.

How It Works Users check in by tapping their phones on a "puck" at the host stand. Each check-in accrues $FLY points, which can be redeemed for perks such as free cocktails, or amassed and used later for payment.

Users also accrue points for paying via Blackbird, which is check-free: After a meal, diners can just get up and go. Blackbird offers rewards to restaurant employees as well. Staffers can tap when they arrive for their shift to accrue points they can spend at network restaurants.