I'd push back on the core premise that spend commitment is a meaningful proxy for the right guest.
A minimum spend floor tells you someone has money. It doesn't tell you they care about the food, know the team, or will ever come back. The repeat guest who comes in on a Tuesday, orders whatever the kitchen is excited about, and brings three friends the following month — that person is the actual lifeblood of a restaurant. Dorsia's model doesn't surface them. It just replaces one transactional guest (the influencer) with another (the wealthy one-timer).
There's also something worth naming about the old system Lotenberg says he's disrupting. Knowing the maître d', having a relationship with the owner — that access was earned. It was relational. What Dorsia is doing is formalizing the grey market it claims to replace, just with a cleaner UI and VC backing.
The honest pitch is: Dorsia optimizes primetime revenue and reduces no-shows. That's a real and valuable thing. But dressing it up as taste curation or 'the right crowd' is a stretch. Spend and taste are not the same thing, and conflating them is exactly the kind of thinking that's been hollowing out genuine hospitality culture for years.
Hi Nicolas, thank you so much for your thoughtful reply. I appreciate it.
You're right that spend and taste are not the same thing, and I don't think Marc would argue otherwise. What he would argue, and what I find genuinely interesting about Dorsia's model, is that the old relational system wasn't as meritocratic as we remember it. The maître d' relationship was also transactional. It just ran on social capital rather than financial capital, which made it less accessible, not more authentic.
Your point about the repeat Tuesday guest is the strongest one here, and honestly it's a question I wish I had pushed harder on in the interview. That guest is the backbone of any great restaurant, and Marc's argument is that Dorsia's personalization layer is precisely what will eventually recognize those guests and match the right people to the right rooms over time, not just optimize for a single night's spend.
Which is exactly why I'd love to hear more from your side of the table. As an operator, what does the right access model actually look like to you? Because I suspect the answer is more complicated than either the old relational system or what Dorsia is building today, and that's a conversation worth having here.
The social capital reframe is fair — I'll take that. The old relational system had its own barriers and wasn't as pure as nostalgia makes it.
But I'd draw a distinction: social capital relationships had feedback loops. You earned the table by coming back, by knowing the team, by being a good guest over time. The relationship had memory and texture. A spend commitment is a single data point with no inherent mechanism to recognize the guest who returns fifteen times versus the one who shows up once and drops $400. Dorsia's pitch is that the personalization layer will eventually build that texture — but Ive yet to see that in their track record so it feels like a promise, not a product yet.
To your question about what the right model looks like: there are people working in the right direction on this. Tools like Loyalist are genuinely trying to give restaurants better access to their own guest data — asking smarter questions of their database, surfacing patterns that would otherwise fall through the cracks. They're looking in the right box, even if they haven't fully cracked it yet.
But software can only act on what culture has already created. If your team isn't trained to pick up certain moments no CRM in the world captures that. The data has to be put there by people who are paying attention — who have been hired and developed with hospitality as a genuine value rather than a job function.
The right model starts there. Hire well. Build a culture where your team is actively looking for moments to delight guests and turn them into regulars. Then use tools like Loyalist to help you see what you're missing and act on it. In that order. Technology amplifies a great hospitality culture.
On the making “relationships systematic and scalable” point I believe we need to embrace serendipity a bit more in the industry. One thing is curating, another is over-calculating. One of the aspects that made restaurants and hospitality great 20 years ago was the diversity of people that could access certain places. In some ways, it felt flatter (think Chelsea Hotel in the 70s). Yes, choices can be empowered by data, but if you over-calculate you can end up with what seems to be a diverse clientele that ends up being absolutely homogeneous in spirit.
I'm intrigued by the rise of referral culture to get your foot in the door. It was always the currency to access most membership clubs, but to see it manifest in the form of a reservation app speaks to a greater shift in hospitality.
Social media democratized access to some extent and now we're coming back full circle and being reminded popularity is earned by who you decide to keep out.
Thanks Dominique. The referral as currency is not a new idea. It's actually one of the oldest social mechanisms there is. But what's interesting about Dorsia is that they're attempting to codify it with precision rather than just relying on reputation and word of mouth the way a private members club traditionally would.
The most desirable places have always understood that exclusivity is a product decision, not a side effect. Social media temporarily disrupted that logic by making visibility the primary currency, and now we're watching the correction happen in real time.
Ahh yes I completely agree! I am curious to what extent Dorsia can scale its referral network without diluting it?? It’s ultimately a marketplace and investors will want to see growth which is in conflict with exclusivity.
For a product such as Dorsia, I actually think it’s less about scale and more about the quality of the user base (ie: high renewal rate, increasing number of bookings, etc). I also think this should apply more to any “luxury” product (whether it’s hospitality, experiences, physical goods, etc) - less about “scale” and more about deepening/improving the quality of the existing relationships
As a travel advisor who focuses quite a bit on food (really: restaurant and bar tourism), I've been keeping an eye on Dorsia and how it could help support me and my clients. Obviously the maître d' is the major touchpoint outside of the customer, but I'm curious how people like myself or concierges fit into (or will fit into) the process here, if at all.
I'd push back on the core premise that spend commitment is a meaningful proxy for the right guest.
A minimum spend floor tells you someone has money. It doesn't tell you they care about the food, know the team, or will ever come back. The repeat guest who comes in on a Tuesday, orders whatever the kitchen is excited about, and brings three friends the following month — that person is the actual lifeblood of a restaurant. Dorsia's model doesn't surface them. It just replaces one transactional guest (the influencer) with another (the wealthy one-timer).
There's also something worth naming about the old system Lotenberg says he's disrupting. Knowing the maître d', having a relationship with the owner — that access was earned. It was relational. What Dorsia is doing is formalizing the grey market it claims to replace, just with a cleaner UI and VC backing.
The honest pitch is: Dorsia optimizes primetime revenue and reduces no-shows. That's a real and valuable thing. But dressing it up as taste curation or 'the right crowd' is a stretch. Spend and taste are not the same thing, and conflating them is exactly the kind of thinking that's been hollowing out genuine hospitality culture for years.
Hi Nicolas, thank you so much for your thoughtful reply. I appreciate it.
You're right that spend and taste are not the same thing, and I don't think Marc would argue otherwise. What he would argue, and what I find genuinely interesting about Dorsia's model, is that the old relational system wasn't as meritocratic as we remember it. The maître d' relationship was also transactional. It just ran on social capital rather than financial capital, which made it less accessible, not more authentic.
Your point about the repeat Tuesday guest is the strongest one here, and honestly it's a question I wish I had pushed harder on in the interview. That guest is the backbone of any great restaurant, and Marc's argument is that Dorsia's personalization layer is precisely what will eventually recognize those guests and match the right people to the right rooms over time, not just optimize for a single night's spend.
Which is exactly why I'd love to hear more from your side of the table. As an operator, what does the right access model actually look like to you? Because I suspect the answer is more complicated than either the old relational system or what Dorsia is building today, and that's a conversation worth having here.
Thank you Nicolas.
The social capital reframe is fair — I'll take that. The old relational system had its own barriers and wasn't as pure as nostalgia makes it.
But I'd draw a distinction: social capital relationships had feedback loops. You earned the table by coming back, by knowing the team, by being a good guest over time. The relationship had memory and texture. A spend commitment is a single data point with no inherent mechanism to recognize the guest who returns fifteen times versus the one who shows up once and drops $400. Dorsia's pitch is that the personalization layer will eventually build that texture — but Ive yet to see that in their track record so it feels like a promise, not a product yet.
To your question about what the right model looks like: there are people working in the right direction on this. Tools like Loyalist are genuinely trying to give restaurants better access to their own guest data — asking smarter questions of their database, surfacing patterns that would otherwise fall through the cracks. They're looking in the right box, even if they haven't fully cracked it yet.
But software can only act on what culture has already created. If your team isn't trained to pick up certain moments no CRM in the world captures that. The data has to be put there by people who are paying attention — who have been hired and developed with hospitality as a genuine value rather than a job function.
The right model starts there. Hire well. Build a culture where your team is actively looking for moments to delight guests and turn them into regulars. Then use tools like Loyalist to help you see what you're missing and act on it. In that order. Technology amplifies a great hospitality culture.
On the making “relationships systematic and scalable” point I believe we need to embrace serendipity a bit more in the industry. One thing is curating, another is over-calculating. One of the aspects that made restaurants and hospitality great 20 years ago was the diversity of people that could access certain places. In some ways, it felt flatter (think Chelsea Hotel in the 70s). Yes, choices can be empowered by data, but if you over-calculate you can end up with what seems to be a diverse clientele that ends up being absolutely homogeneous in spirit.
You’re right and I’ve been thinking of this too. I’m thinking about a balance between serendipity and curation. It’s a tough one for sure
100%, the world is becoming more complex, and so is relationship building. It’s balance to be achieved for sure! Great publication! 👏
Well said! I'm in total agreement.
Thank you!
I'm intrigued by the rise of referral culture to get your foot in the door. It was always the currency to access most membership clubs, but to see it manifest in the form of a reservation app speaks to a greater shift in hospitality.
Social media democratized access to some extent and now we're coming back full circle and being reminded popularity is earned by who you decide to keep out.
Thanks Dominique. The referral as currency is not a new idea. It's actually one of the oldest social mechanisms there is. But what's interesting about Dorsia is that they're attempting to codify it with precision rather than just relying on reputation and word of mouth the way a private members club traditionally would.
The most desirable places have always understood that exclusivity is a product decision, not a side effect. Social media temporarily disrupted that logic by making visibility the primary currency, and now we're watching the correction happen in real time.
Ahh yes I completely agree! I am curious to what extent Dorsia can scale its referral network without diluting it?? It’s ultimately a marketplace and investors will want to see growth which is in conflict with exclusivity.
For a product such as Dorsia, I actually think it’s less about scale and more about the quality of the user base (ie: high renewal rate, increasing number of bookings, etc). I also think this should apply more to any “luxury” product (whether it’s hospitality, experiences, physical goods, etc) - less about “scale” and more about deepening/improving the quality of the existing relationships
As a travel advisor who focuses quite a bit on food (really: restaurant and bar tourism), I've been keeping an eye on Dorsia and how it could help support me and my clients. Obviously the maître d' is the major touchpoint outside of the customer, but I'm curious how people like myself or concierges fit into (or will fit into) the process here, if at all.