The Diners’ Choice program recognizes top-rated restaurants based on authentic feedback from OpenTable diners after they have dined and experienced the restaurant’s hospitality.
Each month, OpenTable compiles this diner feedback to determine which restaurants deliver consistently outstanding food, service and ambiance worth honoring across a variety of categories like:
- Best Overall
- Best Ambiance
- Best Service
The highest-rated spots earn the prestigious Diners’ Choice badge.
Let’s see how Diners’ Choice restaurants are awarded in more detail and why it’s a distinction so valuable for driving new and repeat business.
Quick links:
- How Diners’ Choice works
- Benefits of winning Diners’ Choice
- Increased visibility and bookings
- Built-in marketing opportunities
- An unbeatable reputation booster
- Fostering diner trust and loyalty
- Actionable operational insights
How Diners’ Choice works
Here’s a quick breakdown of how the Diners’ Choice winners are selected each month:
Diner feedback collection
After every completed reservation made through OpenTable, diners are prompted to rate their overall experience from one to five stars. They can also leave additional comments evaluating aspects like food quality, service attentiveness, value, and just about any other notable parts of their dining experience.
Data analysis
OpenTable aggregates all of this diner feedback data and crunches the numbers to determine which restaurants consistently earn high praise across different categories like Best Overall, Best Ambiance, Best Service, and Best Outdoor Dining. Geographic areas are also accounted for to honor top spots by city, neighborhood, and region.
Winner validation and celebration
The top-performing restaurants earn Diners’ Choice status based on their outstanding diner ratings and reviews. Winners receive digital assets like website badges and social media graphics to amplify their achievement far and wide using #DinersChoice as a hashtag, and physical window clings to adhere to their restaurant windows and doors.
Benefits of winning Diners’ Choice
For the top class of restaurants awarded a Diners’ Choice badge, the advantages could be significant for elevating brand reputation. Not only that, but it can further help expand your diner base and cultivate guest loyalty.
Here’s a closer look at how:
Increased visibility and bookings
Landing a Diners’ Choice badge is a visibility booster on OpenTable and beyond. That badge makes a restaurant’s profile pop as a top-rated destination worth booking. It puts the award winner on diners’ radars as somewhere that has something special about it.
Built-in marketing opportunities
From physical badges to digital ones that link to the reservation flow, Diners’ Choice winners are equipped with customizable marketing graphics and toolkits to help amplify their achievement across channels like social media and emails.
An unbeatable reputation booster
Diners’ Choice represents a high level of endorsement: praise from countless diners who experienced the hospitality firsthand. It signals exceptional, proven quality that’s verified.
Fostering diner trust and loyalty
With more and more crowdsourced reviews and star ratings, Diners’ Choice impresses upon guests making booking decisions that they can trust they’re getting an outstanding experience validated by their peers, not just critics. This credibility can bring new guests through the door while keeping regulars coming back.
Actionable operational insights
Beyond the prestige and accolades, Diners’ Choice feedback highlights what’s working from an operational standpoint—and what might need some fine-tuning. If service is consistently cited as incredible but pacing tends to drag, there’s an opportunity to improve.
If ambiance and value wow, but some dishes don’t hit the right spots, that’s something to examine. Using feedback, restaurants can double down on strengths and address potential weaknesses to improve services further.
Diners’ Choice awards carry significance because they represent the ultimate honor in hospitality: earning the glowing praise and esteem of the diners you work so hard to delight every single day.
It’s a tall order to reach the level of consistent excellence worthy of Diners’ Choice status. Earning that prestigious badge requires an unwavering commitment to delivering outstanding food, service, ambiance and overall value that creates raving fans and positive reviews across the board.
How can you win a Diners’ Choice badge?
While earning a Diners’ Choice badge is certainly an impressive accomplishment, it doesn’t happen by chance. There are specific criteria and minimum thresholds restaurants need to meet to qualify for consideration.
First and foremost, your restaurant needs to be actively using OpenTable and generating a consistent stream of diner reviews and ratings. The more feedback you can accumulate from guests who have made reservations and dined with you, the better.
Diners’ Choice is determined using a rolling time period—365 days for national category awards, and 120 days for regional awards. During those windows, your restaurant will need to hit the following minimums:
- An overall star rating of 4 or higher (out of 5 stars) based on accumulated diner reviews during that time period for national awards. A 3 or higher for regional.
- Meet a minimum threshold of 20 total reviews and 10 completed reservations. More reviews equals better qualifying chances.
In addition to overall ratings, OpenTable evaluates specific aspects of the diner experience like food, service, ambiance and value. Cultivating consistent, excellent feedback across all of these categories is important.
Finally, any Diners’ Choice winners must meet basic eligibility requirements regarding recent activity on the OpenTable reservation system, as well as being a restaurant in good standing.
While there’s no magic formula, focusing on delivering an exceptional hospitality experience for each and every guest is the surest path to earning outstanding ratings and reviews. Do that reliably for an extended period, and a Diners’ Choice badge could be headed your way.
Summary: The diners’ choice
For restaurants that clear the high bar, the benefits of Diners’ Choice are invaluable. Winners can elevate their brands to new levels and cultivate guest loyalty supported by the trusted endorsement of their diners. Their excellence is recognized and affirmed.
