System and method for reducing excess capacity for restaurants and other industries during off-peak or other times

Abstract

A system and method for reducing excess capacity for restaurants and other industries during off-peak hours is provided. Customers or potential customers may bid on gift certificates redeemable at restaurants during a predetermined time. Users may register with the system and provide identification and demographic information which may be used by restaurants for targeted marketing strategies, promotions, and special offers. The system may include a registration module, an auction module, a restaurant guide module, a restaurant manager module, rewards and referral center module, restaurant reservation module, and advertisement displays.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A computer-implemented system for reducing excess capacity for one or more restaurants that experience periods of peak demands and periods of non-peak demands and for collecting information about at least one user, the system comprising:
 a server configured to execute computer program modules corresponding to a website, the computer program modules comprising:
 a request module configured to present an interface to a user via the website through which user requests are received for incentives for dining at restaurants corresponding to one or more user selected restaurant characteristics; 
 an incentive module configured to concomitantly present to a user via the website, in response to receipt of a user request for incentives through the interface, a plurality of incentives for dining at any of a set of two or more restaurants that correspond to the one or more user selected restaurant characteristics included in the received user request for incentives, 
 wherein the incentives are subject to restrictions, 
 wherein the incentive module is configured to provide the incentives with restrictions specifying valid dates and/or times that correspond to non-peak demand periods of the restaurants associated with the incentives to incentivize dining at the restaurants during non-peak demand, and 
 wherein the incentive module is configured such that responsive to a first restaurant of the set of restaurants having a different non-peak demand period than a second restaurant of the set of restaurants the incentive module concomitantly presents to the user via the website a first incentive associated with the first restaurant that is subject to different restrictions than a second incentive associated with the second restaurant. 
   
     
     
         2 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the incentive is one of:
 a predetermined percentage off a purchase, or   a predetermined amount off a purchase.   
     
     
         3 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the computer program modules further comprise:
 a registration module configured to obtain information about users via the website, and to register the users to user accounts on the website; and   a storing module configured to manage storage of the information obtained by the registration module about the users.   
     
     
         4 . The system of  claim 3 , wherein the information obtained by the registration module about users comprises one or more of a dining frequency, one or more favorite restaurants, one or more favorite types of food, a preferred price range, a preferred location of restaurants, or a preferred way to learn of a promotion. 
     
     
         5 . The system of  claim 3 , wherein the information obtained by the registration module about users comprises one or more of a frequency of dining out, a preferred way to learn of a promotion, or price sensitivity information. 
     
     
         6 . The system of  claim 3 , wherein the computer program modules further comprise a customer configured to aggregate data, responsive to a command from a restaurant, on one or more of user demographics information, user preferences information, user demographics information, or user preferences information obtained by the registration module. 
     
     
         7 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the computer program modules further comprise a restaurant guide module configured to provide users with information about the one or more restaurants. 
     
     
         8 . The system of  claim 7 , wherein the restaurant guide module is further configured to perform searches of the restaurants satisfying user-specified queries. 
     
     
         9 . The system of  claim 8 , wherein the restaurant guide module is configured to receive queries from the user that result in searching the restaurants based on one or more of a user specified cuisine type, a user-specified location, or a user specified price range. 
     
     
         10 . The system of  claim 7 , wherein the information about the one or more restaurants comprises a community restaurant rating, and/or consumer review information. 
     
     
         11 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the request module is configured such that the user requests include one or more user-specified dining parameters. 
     
     
         12 . The system of  claim 11 , wherein the user-specified dining parameters comprise one or more of a time for dining, a number of people in a dining party, or a minimum amount of money to be spent on a meal. 
     
     
         13 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the a user receives an incentive responsive to the user dining in accordance to the restrictions associated with the incentive. 
     
     
         14 . A computer-implemented method of reducing excess capacity for one or more restaurants that experience periods of peak demands and periods of non-peak demands and for collecting information about at least one user, wherein the method is implemented in a server configured to execute one or more computer program modules corresponding to a website, the method comprising:
 receiving a user request for incentives for dining at restaurants corresponding to one or more user selected restaurant characteristics, wherein the user request for incentives is received via the website, and specifies the one or more user selected restaurant characteristics;   concomitantly presenting to a user via the website, in response to the received user request for incentives, incentives for dining at individual ones of a set of two or more restaurants that correspond to the one or more user selected restaurant characteristics,   wherein the incentives are subject to restrictions,   wherein the restrictions of the incentives specify valid dates and/or times that correspond to non-peak demand periods of the restaurants associated with the incentives to incentivize dining at the restaurants during non-peak demand, and   wherein responsive to a first restaurant of the set of restaurants having a different non-peak demand period than a second restaurant of the set of restaurants a first incentive associated with the first restaurant is presented on the website concomitantly with a second incentive associated with the second restaurant such that the first incentive is subject to different restrictions than the second incentive.