Last updated . Source: SnagRes availability record, 61,530,416 checks across 284 restaurants through 19 October 2026. How we measure. Open dataset.
New York General Business Law section 391-w, in effect since February 17, 2025, bars third-party websites and apps from listing, advertising, promoting or selling a New York restaurant's reservations without a written agreement with that restaurant. The fines fall on the service, up to $1,000 per violation. Paying the restaurant itself, or a platform it contracts with, is outside the ban. This is a summary, not legal advice.
Selling them through a website or app without the restaurant's written agreement is what section 391-w prohibits. Each unauthorized listing is a separate violation, with civil penalties of up to $1,000 each, accruing daily for a reservation service.
Yes, if the restaurant sells it. Restaurants and the booking platforms they have authorized remain free to charge for reservations, which is how prepaid Tock tickets, deposits and set-menu bookings work. The law targets services that sell tables without the restaurant's agreement.
No. Section 391-w is New York State law and covers food service establishments in New York. Other states set their own rules.
No. SnagRes watches availability at hard-to-book restaurants and alerts you when a table opens. It never books, holds or resells a table and takes no fee per reservation. You book the table yourself, in your own account, at the restaurant's price.
Start with the rooms you actually want: see live New York restaurant availability, check when each restaurant releases reservations, and read how to get a last-minute table.
This guide summarizes public sources and is not legal advice.
Not from a resale site. Since February 17, 2025, New York General Business Law section 391-w has barred any website or app that is not run by the restaurant from listing, advertising, promoting or selling reservations at a New York restaurant unless it has a written agreement with that restaurant. The penalty is a civil fine of up to $1,000 per violation, and for a reservation service the violations accrue daily.
What you can still do is pay the restaurant itself, or a booking platform the restaurant has contracted with. Prepaid tickets, deposits and set menus sold that way are outside the ban, because the restaurant agreed to them. The law was written against the middle layer: services that grab tables they were never given and sell them on.
This page describes what the statute says. It is not legal advice, and if you run a restaurant or a booking service you should ask a lawyer about your own situation.
The statute is called the restaurant reservation anti-piracy act. It defines a third-party restaurant reservation service as any website, mobile application or other internet service that offers or arranges reservations for on-premises dining at a food service establishment and is owned and operated by someone other than the restaurant's owner.
Distribution channels the restaurant has authorized by contract are carved out. That is why Resy, OpenTable, Tock and SevenRooms keep working: the restaurant chose them and signed with them. The prohibition bites on services with no such agreement.
Governor Kathy Hochul signed the bill, S.9365A and A.10215A, on December 19, 2024, and it took effect 60 days later. According to the Holland & Knight summary, penalties can be pursued by the state attorney general or other authorized agencies, and each unauthorized restaurant listing counts as a separate violation.
Who it covers: websites, apps and internet services that offer or arrange restaurant reservations and are not run by the restaurant.
What it bans: listing, advertising, promoting or selling a restaurant's reservations without a written agreement with that restaurant.
Who it leaves alone: the restaurant itself and the booking platforms it has contracted with.
The penalty: a civil fine of up to $1,000 per violation, accruing daily for a reservation service.
The Governor's office put it directly: bots were hoarding coveted reservations and selling them for a profit without the restaurant knowing. The release also pointed to rising no-show rates, and diners were paying a markup to a stranger for a seat the restaurant would have given them at its own price.
Resy and Tock publicly backed the bill, as did the New York State Restaurant Association. The target was never diners. It was the resale layer sitting between the diner and the restaurant.
Beyond the law, a bought reservation is fragile. It usually sits in someone else's name and someone else's account, on a booking the restaurant never agreed to sell. If the restaurant spots it and cancels, or the seller cancels, there is typically nobody with an obligation to make it right.
You are also paying for something that is not actually scarce in the way the price implies. Hard tables do come back. What is scarce is being the person looking at the moment one does.
Catch the cancellation. On our 19 October 2026 reading, 23 of the 84 New York restaurants we track showed no bookable table for two anywhere in their booking window. Those calendars still open: a table frees up when someone cancels, and it usually goes within minutes to whoever sees it first.
SnagRes watches those calendars across Resy, OpenTable, Tock and SevenRooms, drawing on 61.53 million availability checks so far, and texts or emails you the moment a table you starred opens. You then book it yourself, in your own account, at the restaurant's own price.
SnagRes never books, holds or resells a table, and it charges nothing per reservation. The seat goes from the restaurant to you, the way the law intends.
Learn the release time: most hard rooms open new dates at a fixed hour, and being there at the drop is the free way in.
Widen the hour: early and late seatings open far more often than 7:30 PM.
Set an alert for the rooms you want, so a cancellation finds you instead of a reseller.
Pay the restaurant, not a middleman: if a room sells tickets or takes deposits, that is the legitimate way to pay for a seat.
Can You Buy Restaurant Reservations in NYC? (2026) | SnagRes
What New York General Business Law section 391-w says about buying and reselling restaurant reservations, what is still legal, and how to get a hard table without paying a reseller.
Keep reading: Catching the cancellation instead · When each restaurant releases tables · What Dorsia is and how its paid tables work · Reservation alert services compared · Live NYC availability, set an alert
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SnagRes checks 284 hard-to-book restaurants across four cities and alerts you when one opens. Watching one is free and no card is needed: see the hardest tables right now.