How A Secret Network Of Finance Bros Snagged The Most Coveted Restaurant Reservations

If you've ever wondered how that vaguely rich but seemingly boring guy you follow on Instagram has always managed to get a seat at the hottest restaurants in town, well, that mystery might finally be solved.

If he's of the finance bro variety, chances are he was a member of #FreeRezy, the secret Telegram chat group that traded hard-to-get reservations among its insider clientele. According to the recent exposé on Eater, the group was started by three former investment bankers who worked around the clock to gobble up coveted timeslots on Resy, booking several tables at once by using multiple accounts, then opening them up on a first-come, first-serve basis to members of the chat. Tables at hot spots like Carbone, Dhamaka, Cote, Saint Theo's, and Via Carota were reportedly up for grabs around a week in advance.

Although the founders of #FreeRezy weren't profiting off their venture, they, of course, were breaching Resy's terms of service and were swiftly booted off the website after Resy caught on. 

Until the next group of enterprising reservation hoarders emerge, we guess the 700 members of the chat will just have to refresh Resy a month in advance like the rest of us.

[Photo via @malmo17]