
The place
A neighborhood institution at 170 West 231st Street in Kingsbridge, the Bronx — the kind of place where the bar knows your name and game day fills every table.
What they had
The book lived on someone else's shelf.
Their reservations ran through a third-party system. Booking requests landed in a list that nobody could run the floor from; guests waited for answers; and the restaurant's own website couldn't take a booking at all. Every reservation also carried the platform's economics — the restaurant renting access to its own guests.
What we built
A reservation system on the restaurant's own website.
- Guests pick their actual table on the restaurant's real floor plan — 18 tables — or send a request the house arranges.
- The host stand runs the night: hosts sign in with their own logins and work Requests, Tonight, the Calendar, the Floor, the Waitlist and House settings — approving a request in one tap.
- Every guest email is automatic, from the restaurant's own address — reservations@bronxpublic.com: the confirmation, any change, a cancellation — and a reminder the day before.
- Occasions and special requests travel with the booking, so the host sees them right on the reservation.
- When a time is full, the guest is offered the nearest open times instead of a dead end.
- Parties of 11 or more are arranged by the house, personally.
- The bookings guests had already made in the old system were carried over, so nobody lost their table.
- A table card we designed carries a QR to the menu and a QR straight to a Google review.
See it live:bronxpublic.com


Why it matters
The guests are the restaurant's.
- No per-cover fees, ever.
- No platform standing between the restaurant and its guests.
- The guest list belongs to the restaurant.
- One flat arrangement instead of a monthly rental that grows with every cover.
Most reservation platforms charge monthly rent plus per-diner fees.
The details
- Client
- The Bronx Public
- Location
- Kingsbridge, The Bronx
- Services
- Website, Custom Reservation System, Guest Email, Website Care
- Status
- Live