- American Express recently acquired the Resy restaurant booking service.
- Resy will be rolled into American Express’ suite of new digital capabilities
- The Resy brand and digital platform will continue to be led by CEO Ben Leventhal and CTO Michael Montero
Recently, American Express announced it is acquiring digital restaurant reservation booking service Resy. This deal is expected to close this summer.
The acquisition of Resy marks another way that American Express is making to expand beyond offering credit card loyalty points and offering experiences and services similar to the deals it made for UK-based dining platform Cake Technologies, Japanese restaurant reservation service Pocket Concierge, airport lounge booking service LoungeBuddy, and the travel assistance app Mezi. With these companies, American Express is developing a suite of new digital capabilities that will offer unique digital services and experiences for its customers.
Resy launched in 2014 and is known for offering table management, CRM, and booking technology suite for restaurants featuring a consumer-facing restaurant reservation app and website for elevating and enhancing dining experiences worldwide. Currently, Resy works with about 4,000 restaurants in 154 U.S. cities and 10 countries. This seats more than 2.6 million diners a week.
“American Express is a brand that we have admired and sought to partner with from our inception. There are myriad points of synergy between Resy and American Express that we look forward to pursuing together in the name of creating an end-to-end global dining platform that thrills both diners and restaurants alike. As it does today, Resy will continue to focus on delivering world-class hospitality software to our amazing restaurant partners, connecting diners to insider experiences, and reimagining the future of dining,” said Resy co-founder and CEO Ben Leventhal.
Resy has created important relationships in the industry with a mission of powering the world’s best restaurants using technology for imagining the future of hospitality. Even though Resy is currently focused primarily in the U.S., it also has a presence in the UK, Europe, Canada, and Australia.
Some of Resy’s products include Resy Fly (inventory management), Business Intelligence (KPIs, revenue information, ratings tracking), and Resy Surveys (tool for restaurants to send out surveys). And Resy essentially offers restaurants sophisticated reservation management solutions at an affordable price and is designed to help restaurants optimize tables and increase revenue. At the same time, it provides consumers with a seamless booking experience with the top restaurants around the world.
Going forward, the Resy brand and digital platform will continue to be led and operated by co-founder and CEO Ben Leventhal. And Resy co-founder and CTO Michael Montero will remain in place. Plus the existing Resy reservation booking and management services and capabilities will continue to be offered. Social media expert Gary Vaynerchuk is also listed as a co-founder of Resy.
Prior to launching Resy, Leventhal was the co-founder of Eater.com and Montero was the co-founder and former CTO of CrowdTwist and is a current Techstars mentor.
“Resy was created to both connect people who love dining out with new, notable and hard to get into restaurants across the globe, as well as help restaurants’ businesses grow and thrive. Similarly, American Express has strong relationships with premium dining partners and restaurants across the globe, and provides our Card Members with access to incredible dining experiences through our exclusive benefits and programs,” added American Express’s SVP of Global Loyalty and Benefits Chris Cracchiolo. “We look forward to working with the Resy team to continue to grow the Resy digital platform, and develop new ways to further connect our Card Members and restaurant partners through unique access and experiences.”
