How to get a restaurant reservation for a birthday dinner

A birthday is the case where flexibility is lowest, because the date is fixed. That makes party size and time the only levers left, and both matter more than people expect. SnagRes tracks 140 of the hardest restaurants in New York City and San Francisco every 15 minutes, so the practical question is not which are famous but which actually have inventory.

What is realistically bookable

These had the most of their booking window open at the last check, which makes them the sensible starting point when the date is fixed and you need somewhere good rather than somewhere impossible.

Restaurants with the most availability at the last check
RestaurantNeighborhoodPlatformWindow open at last check
Shinzo OmakaseEast VillageResy100%
EssexLower East SideResy100%
OberonLower ManhattanResy100%
Sushi Hayashi WilliamsburgWilliamsburgResy100%
Cafe ZoetropeNorth BeachTock100%
DelfinaMissionOpenTable100%
Bar JabroniMissionSevenRooms100%
Minetta TavernGreenwich VillageResy97%
NubeluzNoMadOpenTable97%
NariJapantownResy97%
HinodeyaMarinaOpenTable97%
HorsefeatherDivisaderoOpenTable97%

What you should not count on

These were close to fully booked. They are worth an alert rather than a plan: the tables that appear are cancellations, they arrive on no schedule, and they go quickly.

Restaurants with the least availability at the last check
RestaurantNeighborhoodPlatformWindow open at last check
CarboneGreenwich VillageResy0%
Via CarotaWest VillageResy0%
Tatiana by Kwame OnwuachiLincoln CenterResy0%
TorrisiNolitaResy0%
SemmaWest VillageResy0%
DhamakaEssex MarketResy0%
ADDAEast VillageResy0%
TheodoraFort GreeneResy0%
The Polo BarMidtown EastResy0%
Monkey BarMidtown EastResy0%
BungalowEast VillageResy0%
The Four HorsemenWilliamsburgResy0%

The three things that move the odds

  1. Party size. Two and four behave differently at most restaurants, sometimes by tens of percentage points, and each restaurant page states which is easier at that specific room.
  2. Time. Early and late seatings are consistently more available than the 7:30 everyone is competing for. At several restaurants we have never once recorded a 7:00 to 8:30 PM table opening.
  3. Being told rather than checking. Cancellations do not follow a schedule, which is exactly why refreshing by hand does not work.

Figures are measured from our own scrape history. How we measure this.

New York tracker · San Francisco tracker · The hardest tables right now