First Table slashes food bill: Gold Coast restaurants embrace discount site

IT’S the restaurant booking website slashing your food bill in half — and it is ramping up on the Gold Coast, adding a dozen new venues. Find out which ones.

First Table founder Mat Weir.

IT’S the restaurant booking website slashing your food bill in half — and it is ramping up on the Gold Coast.

Kiwi entrepreneur Mat Weir’s First Table is adding a dozen new Gold Coast venues from this coming Monday.

First Table started three-and-a-half years ago in New Zealand’s tourism capital of Queenstown, before arriving in Australia in late 2015 and more recently the UK.

Customers pay $10 to the site to secure a restaurant’s first available table of the night. In return their food bill for up to four diners is cut 50 per cent.

First Table, a website by Kiwi entrepreneur Mat Weir, offers patrons who pay the site $10 to secure a restaurant's first table of the night, gets 50 per cent off their food bill for up to four people. First Table is ramping up on the Gold Coast with 12 new restaurant members from June 2018

Drinks remain full price.

Surfers Paradise venue Central Lounge Bar & Dining and Broadbeach’s Mecca Bar are on First Table.

First Table says joining them will be SoPo Dining Room, Kirra Point’s Baskk, Shiraz Authentic Persian, Comuna Cantina, Mandala & Co, Wagu-Ya on Chevron, Wai-Wai Dining, Tonic on Chirn, The Scottish Prince, The Cambus Wallance, Cecada Restaurant and Elixiba.

They will be among 700 First Table restaurants across NZ, Australia and the UK.

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Weir says: “First Table is to restaurants what happy hours are for bars — we make it affordable for adventurous food lovers to discover new restaurants during quietest times; it’s a win-win for both parties.”

First Table Queensland territory manager Jessie Monkley, now in Queenstown after eight years on the Gold Coast, says she’ll be back next month signing up more Coast venues.

“This is one of the most exciting places to eat out in Australia. New pop-up bars and street food styled laneways are breathing new life into an already exciting scene.”