“The challenge that every single restaurant is...

i'm ryan sutton, the new york food critic for bloomberg news.

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The challenge that every single restaurant is faced with is the elasticity of demand from consumers,” said Ben McKean, Savored’s co-founder and C.E.O. “In an off-peak hour, you might get only a couple people who want to go to the restaurant, and in a peak hour you might get people out the door.” Restaurants are “leaving so much on the table,” he said.

The New York Times profiles Savored, a restaurant reservation website that offers guests 15%-40% discounts, typically in the off-hours.

We at The Bad Deal have said NICE THINGS about Savored in the past. The service requires no pre-payment by guests and the demand-based pricing makes more economic sense than a deal from Groupon or Gilt City, which can overrun your restaurant with cheapos in the prime-time hours.

ALSO: Savored diners, as far as we can tell, aren’t limited to “Restaurant Week-esque” menu restrictions, as is often the case with deal sites. For example: At Le Cirque, you can get your discounts off the regular menu or the tasting menus.

While the service is now FREE, we were still kinda sorta fans of Savored even when it was charging $10 for reservations; we like to think the pre-payment was a reasonable “cancellation fee” of sorts.