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Topics: US Food, Restaurants and bars, News
Ella Scott
Philadelphia residents will no longer be able to purchase restaurant reservations from third party websites as officials crack down on seat ‘scalping’.
Nabbing a table at a swanky establishment can be an absolute nightmare.
Some may find they’ve been placed on a waitlist for months, while others will be forced to book tables at inconvenient times just to get in.
Various third-party retailers have capitalised on the demand, birthing what is being dubbed as ‘reservation scalping’.
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The practice sees people logging onto a hard-to-book restaurant’s site, snatch up all the seats, and then selling them on for a ludicrous price.
Speaking about how desperate diners are being swindled by the reservation blackmarket, Ben Fileccia, PA Restaurant and Lodging Association’s senior vice president told Fox 29: “We’ve seen restaurants go for $200, $300, $400 and upwards.”
What’s even more wild is that these third-party sellers can usually do this without the restaurants say.
But the seat flipping practice is changing in Philadelphia, with Mayor Cherelle Parker signing in a new legislation to combat reservation scalping in 2026.
On 7 January, the 53-year-old put her signature on a rule which will prohibit resale sites from ‘arranging unauthorised restaurant reservations’ without the individual eatery’s consent.
Under the law, which specifically targets ‘third-party restaurant reservation services’, the scalpers will no longer be allowed to charge, collect, or receive a fee for one or more restaurant reservations without the restaurant's written authorisation, as per Food & Wine.
The legislation was passed in late 2025 and will officially be in play by the time that April 2026 swings around.
Anyone who is caught violating the order may have to pay a fine of up to $1,000 per incident.
It’s important to note that the ban stops third-party reservation services in their tracks - not individuals.
This loophole means there’s nothing to stop individuals from hoovering up the bookings and subsequently profiting from them.
In an interview with Food & Wine, the National Restaurant Association, a network of 52 individual state organisations said that they didn’t want the third-party websites to cease trading.
Instead, the small companies want more autonomy over the reservations.
“We want [the restaurants] to have the ability [to work with third-party sites]. If they want that to happen, that’s their prerogative, and they should be able to enter into a relationship.
“But we want restaurants to be able to have control.”
Philadelphia’s anti-scalping law comes two years after New York approved the Restaurant Reservation Anti-Piracy Act.
The statute does not actually prohibit the sale or resale of restaurant reservations.
Rather, it stops the sale or listing of reservations on a third-party site which doesn’t have written restaurant permission.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul said at the time that the law would put an end to the ‘predatory black market for restaurant reservations’.