Soul Gastrolounge used the NoWait app, but is looking for alternatives. Kristen Wile/UP

After Yelp purchased NoWait about a year ago for $40 million, it took a while for diners to see the impact. Yelp added Yelp Nowait to its app recently, and NoWait disappeared from the app store.

What does this mean for you? Many restaurants that were using NoWait in Charlotte continue to do so, such as Midwood Smokehouse, Haberdish, and Crêpe Cellar.

Jeff Tonidandel, owner of Crêpe Cellar and Haberdish, says it took some time to get the settings right once the switch to the Yelp platform happened. He found Yelp’s team to be responsive in getting things to where they wanted them, and after a few weeks of dialing the settings back in, he’s happier with the app than before. Yelp has added a “table almost ready” button, allowing them to nudge diners to head towards the restaurant. Before, the table had to be open, creating a greater time lag between when the diners were notified and when they got to the restaurant. Guests were also way of using an app that hadn’t heard of.

“It’s been really helpful as far as a brand recognition piece and explaining what we’re doing,” Tonidandel says. “Everybody’s got yelp on their phone. It’s just a lot more visible.”

The Punch Room continues to use the back-end side of it, but customers can no longer get in line from their phones.

But guests who were regulars at Good Food on Montford and used the app are out of luck. Good Food, Bruce Moffett’s second restaurant, stopped using it entirely because several large parties could get in line at the same time, even though the dining room couldn’t necessarily fit them. Diners were left with much longer waits than the app suggested. Plaza Midwood’s Soul Gastrolounge is still on the app, but actively looking for an alternative, according to owner Lesa Kestanas.

We don’t know of any similar reservation systems in use just yet, but it didn’t take long for Resy to become popular and begin taking business away from OpenTable with its lower prices for restaurants and better ability to interact with customers. Good Food on Montford and Soul Gastrolounge consistently have the longest waits for tables around town, and NoWait was a good way to cut at least some of that time down.

Both owners have opened or are opening new restaurants that could have benefited the old app; N.C. Red certainly would have been popular on NoWait. Hopefully we’ll see an alternative pop up soon. In the meantime, you’ll have to wait the old-fashioned way at Good Food. —Kristen Wile