Restaurants wage war against BOTS who gobble up primetime reservations and then sell them on third-party sites, forcing diners to pay up to $340 to secure a spot at top bars

Some of New York’s most iconic restaurants are plagued by bots that steal customer reservations and then resell them for hundreds of dollars.

Owners of iconic eateries like Carbone and Don Angie — the West Village social media sensation heavily featured on TikTok — say the problem started last summer but has become more prevalent in recent months.

The seat-grabbing schemes are reminiscent of the technology that is stolen and price-gauged – Taylor Swift tickets and collectible sneakers, reserving seats in milliseconds and then operators selling them back to customers at a profit.

Sites used by the resellers include Appointment Trader and Resy, with the latter now saying it has taken measures to combat the bots.

Representatives of the website – as well as several local restaurant owners – spread the word Bloomberg how they now look for suspicious behavior such as emails consisting of jumbled numbers and letters, or disconnected numbers and fake credit cards to unmask scalpers.

Owners of iconic eateries like Carbone and Don Angie — the West Village social media sensation heavily featured on TikTok and in this photo — say it’s a problem that largely started last summer but has become increasingly prevalent in recent months

The measures have helped, says Em Pak, manager at ‘Best Bar in North America’ Double Chicken Please, the publication told, but the problem persists.

She said customers now have to fork out at least $300 to walk into his high-profile eatery, thanks to upselling websites like ResX and Dorsia.

GN Chan, co-owner of the LES hotspot, added: ‘It is now a very serious problem that is happening to many restaurants and bars.’

He explained how the chic watering hole was bombarded with bots for the first time after being named the best bar on the continent by worlds50bestbars.com this year.

In response, he said he has reduced the number of reserved seats and opted to welcome more walk-ins.

Pak, meanwhile, explained some of the ways she and other staffers sift through the rest of the reservations to distinguish who is a real customer.

Accounts associated with invalid email addresses, or profiles with a history of booking primetime and back-to-back reservations on weekends are red flags, she said, while the more common disconnected phone numbers and invalid credit cards also count as indicators serve.

But even with this increased scrutiny, she told Bloomberg that sometimes it’s still impossible to tell — “and we don’t want to risk canceling a reservation that belongs to someone who booked authentically.”

Employees at Double Chicken Please in the West Village, which was named the best bar in North America earlier this year, told Bloomberg how they now look for anything suspicious, such as emails made up of jumbled numbers and letters, or disconnected numbers and fake credit cards

The measures have helped, Em Pak (left), a manager at Lower East S, told the publication – but the problem remains. GN Chan, co-owner of the LES hotspot, added: ‘It is now a very serious problem that is happening to many restaurants and bars’

4 Charles Prime Rib, a very exclusive restaurant in the Financial District, is also reportedly subject to the relatively recent wave of bots

This, she explained, caused the company to lose out not only on the $20 cancellation fee normally charged to invalid credit cards, but also on time and even on customers and revenue.

Chan, meanwhile, said he’s seen chairs at his bar selling for $340 each on marketplaces like Cita, another new website that lets diners buy and sell reservations.

He went on to explain how guests now expect more from him and other staff after being forced to fork out a few hundred dollars to get in, leaving customers with “the wrong expectations when they come.”

Pak added that some sites like Resy, which manages bookings for Double Chicken Please, are slowly starting to take action, “removing confirmed bot profiles and essentially sending cease and desist emails to broker profiles,” said she.

However, others like Appointment Trader have been slower to act – with bidding for seats as high as $125 for each day allowed to take place unattended weeks in advance.

Another restaurant affected by the new phenomenon is Don Angie, where Grub Street said earlier this year that reservations typically sell for up to $200.

Another eatery reportedly set on fire by bots, Tribeca’s busy Farra Wine Bar.

While some third-party booking sites have taken steps to combat the rush of robo-reservations, sites like Appointment Trader (pictured) have been slower to act – with bidding on seats ranging up to $125 allowed for each day that weeks in advance may go unchecked

Don Angie owners Angie Rito and Scott Tacinelli told Bloomberg on Wednesday how the issue of disappearing seats started last summer, and how staff are now forced to contact customers one by one to make sure they really are.

Chef-owners Angie Rito and Scott Tacinelli told Bloomberg on Wednesday how the issue of disappearing seats started last summer, though Rito added, “But it has become clearer in recent months.”

4 Charles Prime Rib, a very exclusive restaurant in the Financial District, is also subject to the overload of robot reservations, as is Tribeca’s busy Farra Wine Bar.

Meanwhile, places like Carbone — which recently lost its Michelin star but is still one of the city’s most recognizable spots — tables are typically gone by 10:01 a.m., 30 days in advance, and less than a minute after they are posted.

For now, the only solution for owners who have had enough is “a lot of extra time and effort,” Rito told the publication, as she and her staff are now forced to contact customers one by one to make sure that they are real.