SF dining - www.opentable.com
 

For people visiting SF (and locals too), you may want to check out this website for making reservations at a great number of SF Bay Area restaurants. As a local, I've found it very helpful and I think you will too. No charge for using them and the restaurants listed have chosen to do so (BTW, I'm not affiliated with them in any way, just a happy user).

I agree. We used this site to make reservations at Boulevard before our trip to SF in the spring. Very easy to use, and I had no problems with the reservation.

Looks like this website doesn't ask to put in your credit card number, what is great! Just my favorite Garden Court is not in there...

I've used it in Philadelphia and San Francisco. It worked out well.

I've used OpenTable often in many cities.

Things to know:

At the nicer restaurants, you are expected to call and confirm the day before or morning of reservation, even though this is not mentioned anywhere on Open Table or in the e-mail confirmation or reminder. For example, when I called the Essex House in NY to cancel Sunday Brunch, I was given a royal dressing down because the table was held even though I hadn't phoned to confirm. Then, we booked Boulevard in San Francisco (a magnificent dining experience). When we returned home, there were three messages on our answering machine, left over two days, asking us to call and confirm (we were already in SF at the time).

Also, some of the better restaurants release only their early and late times to Open Table. When I called to cancel at March in NYC, the very nice lady asked why. When I explained that we had eaten lunch too late and weren't hungry yet but knew the rest of the evening was booked, she advised that only early and late times were released to OpenTable. A place in Baltimore told me the same thing when I phoned to verify that there were openings for 8:30 on a Saturday night (when, in fact, there were).

I've found OpenTable very easy to use and an efficient way of dealing with travel reservations.
No risk, and they even have a frequent user reward program.