I thought I'd give luck a little help.
Some of the best people in your life might still be strangers.
The next great story. A new friend. A night you'll talk about for years.
They're out there. You just haven't crossed paths.
So I built OpenSeat.
Good places. New faces. Anything can happen.
Find a table at a local restaurant. Claim a seat. Show up.
Or start your own table and let others join.
No swiping. No awkward invites. No group chat that needs a project manager.
No weeks of messaging that eventually dies of natural causes.
Just real people, getting together in real places.
Maybe you make a friend for life.
Maybe you just have great rigatoni.
And if it all goes sideways, at least there's cheesecake.
Either way, you win.
Nothing planned tonight?
There's a table for four at that little Italian place you've never tried.
Three seats taken. One left.
You grab it.
By dessert, you're laughing with people who were complete strangers two hours ago.
Maybe you do it again next week.
Maybe you end up traveling together next summer.
Or maybe Tuesday just embarrassed Saturday.
That's the beauty of it.
You never know.
Most apps fight for your attention.
Then charge you to get noticed.
Your social life is being managed by an algorithm with a sales target and the emotional intelligence of a parking meter.
Not here.
No paid boosts. No popularity contests. No digital meat market.
YOU ARE THE ATTENTION.
And it's not for sale.
Find your table. Make your plans. Put the damn phone away.
Less screen time. More stories worth telling.
Want to host dinners, sell tickets, or build a community?
Go for it.
0% OpenSeat fees.
Apparently, letting people keep their own money is now considered revolutionary.
As for meeting people:
Free to browse.
$22/month gets 8 seat credits and 3 gift credits.
Extra seats? $2.
Pay your own bill.
No tricks. No paying to be popular.
Simple.
I like my life. I like my friends.
I just haven't met all of them yet.
I'm Stephen. I built OpenSeat.
An entire technology platform because I wanted to meet more people.
I may have over-engineered it. Force of habit.
No investors. No business model built around keeping people lonely, scrolling, and paying to be seen.
Just a better way to get people together.
Because somewhere out there is someone you'll get along with famously.
And right now, neither of you has a clue.
I thought we should fix that.
Stephen Iervella
Founder and CEO, OpenSeat LLC
An app for meeting new people over food and drinks at real places. For adults, in active development.
Every event shows its venue from the start: the photo, the address and the website, before you choose.
Browse meals and get-togethers at real places, at any time of day. A table that has not confirmed yet reads Open
A seat uses one credit from your membership. You can see how many have been claimed: 3 of 4 claimed
Changed your mind? Release the seat before the cutoff shown on the event and the credit comes back. After the cutoff it is spent. If a table does not go ahead, the credit comes back.
Meet the people at your table. Names show once you have met. Afterwards, if you both want to stay in touch, you become friends.
Events happen at restaurants, cafes, bars and other real places. Pick the one you want to go to.
Brunch
Coffee
Cook-from-scratch, ticketed by its host
Dinner
Drinks
Have a cafe in mind? Want company for Tuesday lunch?
Start a table. Pick the place and the time, and other people can claim the seats. A table of two can go ahead.
Starting a table makes you its proposer. It gives you no special powers over it.
Hosts sell tickets to their own events and build an audience through a Tribe.
Sell tickets through Stripe. Hosts are paid through Stripe Connect. OpenSeat takes no fee on tickets today.
A Tribe is a host's audience on OpenSeat, like an email list. Anyone can join free. Hosts can charge dues through their own Stripe account, and OpenSeat's fee on dues is 0%.
Look around with a free account. Membership gives you monthly credits for seats, including some to share.
$0
Browse every event.
$22a month
8 seat credits and 3 gift credits each month. One price.
$2
One more seat, when you want it.
A seat uses a credit from your membership. Claiming it is not a separate card charge. Gift credits let you bring someone along or give someone a seat.
We are building v1 for one complete launch. Everything after it is planned, and no dates are set.
Now
The web app is in active development at app.openseat.ca: events, seats, tables, membership, tickets, Tribes and the assistant.
At launch
v1 ships whole, not in stages.
After launch
The web app runs at app.openseat.ca and is in active development. This is the stack today, including the planned move for the assistant.
OpenSeat LLC is self-funded and building the first version of OpenSeat, to launch whole, in one release.
An app for meeting new people over food and drinks, for adults. You browse events at real places, claim a seat and meet the people at the table. You can also start a table yourself.
Browsing and an account are free. Membership is $22 a month and includes 8 seat credits and 3 gift credits each month. Extra seat credits are $2 each. Hosts also sell tickets to their own events.
Yes, until the cutoff shown on the event. Release it before then and the credit comes back. After the cutoff the credit is spent. If a table does not go ahead, the credit comes back.
A full event keeps a line. People who ask to be told about a freed seat are told in order.
Yes. Gift credits let you bring someone along or give someone a seat. Membership includes 3 gift credits each month.
People who claimed a seat, or were given one. Each event can carry a recommended age range as a guide. Names show once you have met at a table together.
You choose what to share, item by item, during setup. Strangers cannot see your name until you have met at a table. You can see and delete what Eleanor has learned about you, and download everything OpenSeat holds about you.
A host's audience on OpenSeat, like an email list. Joining is free. Hosts can charge dues through their own Stripe account, and OpenSeat's fee on those dues is 0%.
The app is in active development and has not launched. Launch plans have not been announced. Write to accounts@openseat.ca with any questions.
OpenSeat LLC, a self-funded company. Stephen Iervella is its founder and CEO. You can reach the company at accounts@openseat.ca.