Diners have been making the most of booking a table at their favourite restaurant online thanks to an application launched by Gateway Systems Ltd.Two years after winning Government’s technology aptitude contest for Table.bm, Gateway now has about 60 restaurants signed up and a loyal following of clients.The innovative website offers the option to view restaurants by parish or style of cuisine, as well as listing the most popular and those that have been reviewed.John Kyle, managing director of Gateway Systems, took his inspiration for the idea from Open table, a similar reservation system for eating out in the US, on a visit to Washington DC when he used the app to find a restaurant in the city.Having approached the makers to see if they could bring it to Bermuda, they turned him down, saying the Island was too small. So taking matters into his own hands, he enlisted the help of Kevin Luckham, director of software services at Gateway Systems to design their own version.“I said to myself we need to bring this to Bermuda because it would be really good as most people here are quite tech savvy and like eating out so it was the perfect match,” he said.“So we sat down and developed the idea for the website,” he said.“We decided that it should be free given that we wanted to help the restaurants and hospitality industry which are all struggling a bit at the moment in this economy.“We also wanted the smaller restaurants to have a web presence which they could maintain by themselves enabling them to put up things like pictures.”One issue, however, has been getting the word out about the app, so Gateway has teamed up with Bermuda.com to market it a bit more through its website.The app can be used by individuals, their concierges or administrative professionals and provides a fast and efficient way to make a booking at any time of the day, even when the restaurant is closed or the phone line is engaged.Meanwhile restaurants benefit from being listed on the Table.bm website and being able to publish their menus quickly and easily, with further enhancements allowing them to post special menus and events in the future.For more information email info[AT]table.bm or visit www.table.bm