Why I Built AlpineTable for Our Mountain Restaurants

I live in a mountain town, and I love the restaurants here. They are the cornerstone of our community. They are where we celebrate after a great day on the slopes, where we catch up with friends, and where we bring our families when they visit.

But running a restaurant up here is incredibly hard.

You have a short winter season to make most of your money. You deal with sudden snowstorms that empty your terrace in ten minutes. You have guests showing up with skis, snowboards, and helmets that need to go somewhere. And when the season ends, you close your doors and wait for summer.

I started noticing a problem. The software our local restaurants use to manage bookings was built for places like Paris or London. Those platforms assume you are open twelve months a year. They assume your guests arrive in a taxi, not on a chairlift.

I wanted to give something back to the businesses that make our town so special. That is why I built AlpineTable.

When you look at the big booking platforms, their pricing models are punishing for seasonal businesses.

Most of them lock you into a twelve month contract. If you run a mountain restaurant that is only open from December to April, you are paying hundreds of euros a month for software you cannot even use during the off season.

Worse, many of these platforms charge a fee for every single person who books a table. I looked at the numbers, and some platforms charge up to $1.50 per cover. If you have a busy week in February and do 200 covers a day, you are giving away hundreds of euros a day in commissions. You are losing margin exactly when you need to be saving it to survive the quiet months.

Pricing is only half the issue. The operational side is just as frustrating.

When someone books a table in a city, the restaurant just needs their name and party size. Up here, you need to know if they are bringing gear. You need to know if they are relying on the last gondola down. You need to know if they want to sit outside, and what happens if the weather turns.

Because generic booking widgets do not ask these questions, guests have to call.

I have seen it happen so many times. The lunch rush hits, the kitchen is slammed, and the phone will not stop ringing. Staff are too busy serving food to answer. Every missed call is a missed booking. And when guests cannot easily change their booking online because of a sudden whiteout, they just do not show up.

Industry data shows that restaurants lose up to 20 percent of their bookings to no shows. For a small mountain business, that is a massive hit to the bottom line.

I built AlpineTable to solve these specific problems. I wanted our local restaurants to have tools that actually fit the way they work.

The biggest change is how we handle pricing. I call it Open Season Pricing. You choose a Winter Pass, a Summer Pass, or an All Season Pass. You only pay when you are actively taking bookings. When your season ends, your billing pauses. Your guest data and menus stay safe in Pause Mode for just five euros a month until you reopen. There are no twelve month contracts and absolutely zero per cover commissions.

I also built the booking flow for the reality of the slopes. Guests can tell you what gear they are bringing when they book. Your staff can see exactly how many skis and snowboards to expect, so you never run out of storage space.

We also created a mobile first Resort Directory. Skiers and hikers make decisions while they are out on the mountain. Now they can find your restaurant and book a table right from the chairlift.

And because everything is online, guests get automated reminders and easy links to modify their booking if the weather changes. That means fewer phone calls for your staff and far fewer no shows.

The hospitality industry is digitizing fast. But technology only helps if it actually understands your business.

Mountain restaurants are different. They have different cash flows, different challenges, and different guests. I built AlpineTable because I want to see our local businesses thrive, keep their margins, and focus on what they do best: providing amazing food and hospitality in one of the most beautiful places on earth.

If you run a seasonal restaurant and you are tired of paying off season subscriptions and per cover fees, I would love to show you what AlpineTable can do.

Let’s keep our mountain restaurants strong.

Pedro