First Table: How a small restaurant in Queenstown inspired entrepreneur Mat Weir to launch a global business

Earlier this year, the company added Sheffield to its 22-strong list of UK cities, with fellow Yorkshire city Leeds also on the firm’s books.

Speaking shortly after the Sheffield launch, the firm’s founder told The Yorkshire Post how an idea from a small local restaurant had turned into a global business.

“I’m from New Zealand, and the idea for First Table first came from a little French restaurant in Queenstown, which is where I'm based, at the bottom of New Zealand,” says Weir.

“It was a bit of a local secret, but you could call the restaurant and ask if anyone had booked the first table of the night. If it was available, they'd get you into the restaurant at six o'clock, sit you in the window seat, and they would offer you 50 per cent off the food bill.

“We had used it as a family a couple of times, and had a really great experience. Because it was French, they offered things like snails and frog’s legs, and then because we're getting half price, it really de-risked it, and meant that we could try some things that we wouldn't normally try.

“I spoke to the owner about it. He told me that he just knew the value of having someone in the restaurant at the beginning of the night, sitting them in the window seat, using it to create a bit of social proof that the venue was open.”

Previously a tech entrepreneur with a background of building booking systems, Weir saw how the restaurant’s model could work for other businesses.

He would go on to create the First Table platform, and head out across Queenstown to onboard local restaurants, signing up ten in his first day on the job.

“Restaurants were like, ‘This is a great idea. Why has anyone not thought of this before?’” says Weir.

After finding success in his home city, Weir would travel from place to place in New Zealand, signing up as many restaurants as he could.

Living out of a camper van, he would spend over a year travelling around the country and its neighbouring Australia.

“After I started in Queenstown, I thought ‘right, I want to get it out there as quickly as possible, so I actually got a relocation campervan, which is when a campervan company will give you a camper for $1 to move it from one city to another city.

“I used those to drive up New Zealand, just going from city to city.

“I'd sign up the restaurants during the day, and then at night jump in the camper van, load them onto the website, drive to the next city, and then and then sleep and do it all over again. I'd keep coming back home, but then I would think, ‘what am I doing back at home? I need to actually be out there getting this into new cities’.

“So I actually got rid of my apartment, got rid of all of my belongings, and I spent 18 months first just traveling around New Zealand and Australia, going from city to city, and getting First Table set up everywhere.”

Roughly two years later, Weir would launch First Table in the UK, with Bristol being the first city to host the platform.

But despite the quick success of the platform, Weir is acutely aware that asking restaurants to offer a 50 per cent discount may not sound like the most attractive business proposition.

“When I came up with the idea, no one had ever really asked restaurants to give 50 per cent off before,” he says.

“Its a lot to ask for. So I kind of figured, I'm not going to be like every other platform out there. Instead of doing what every other platform does, I'm going to actually make it free for restaurants to use.”

Instead of charging restaurants to use the platform, First Table asks diners to pay a small fee when making a booking.

“That works really well, because restaurants aren't paying anything,” says Weir.

“Obviously, they're offering that 50 per cent off the food bill, but we've also set it up so restaurants are in full control of it, so they choose the nights and times that they want to do it.

“We started off just doing the first table of the night, but then we expanded into breakfast and lunch and late tables as well. Now we've really opened it up. So any off-peak times that a restaurant wants to offer on the platform, it's up to them.”

Asked why restaurants are open to offering half price food, Weir believes the answer is two-fold.

“All restaurants have that same problem at the beginning of the night. They open the doors and they've got to wait for those first customers to come in,” he says.

“Everyone wants to dine around the busy time of the night. There's less incentive to actually dine off-peak, and restaurants don't have a whole lot of tools to be able to drive demand at the times that they need.

“This is an effective way to get some bums on seats at the times that a venue needs, and it helps with the trade for the rest of the night because it's creating an atmosphere and it's creating some social proof that that venue is worth dining at.”

“Its also a great way for restaurants to acquire new customers. When a customer makes a booking on First Table, we ask them whether they've dined at that restaurant before or not, and around 75 per cent of people are indicating that they are dining at that restaurant for the first time.”

Over a decade on since the launch of First Table, Weir still often thinks of the small French restaurant that gave him the idea for the business.

“Its not there anymore,” he says, “the building has been demolished and built into something new. But it remains the inspiration. I'd love to speak to the owner of that restaurant one day. I'm sure he follows the story closely.”