In this article
  1. What is actually changing
  2. What it means for European restaurants
  3. The independence question
  4. Thinking about switching?

American Express has agreed to buy TheFork, one of Europe’s largest restaurant reservation platforms, from Tripadvisor for $700 million in cash. The deal was announced on 14 June 2026 and is expected to close before the end of the year, subject to the usual employee consultation and regulatory approvals.

For the 50,000-plus restaurants across 11 European countries that rely on TheFork, it is worth understanding what is actually changing – and what it means for your guest data, your costs and your independence.

What is actually changing

TheFork was already owned by a US company: Tripadvisor has held it for years. So an American owner behind the platform is not new. What is new is the kind of owner. American Express is a global payments and card network, not a travel-reviews business, and TheFork now joins its growing dining portfolio alongside Resy and Tock – two reservation platforms Amex already owns. Together, the three are expected to cover around 75,000 bookable venues worldwide.

In other words, a single US financial company is consolidating a large share of restaurant booking – and the diner data that comes with it – under one roof.

What it means for European restaurants

Your guest data has a new steward

Every reservation carries data: guest names, contact details, visit history, party sizes, sometimes dietary notes and spend. On a marketplace, that data sits with the platform, not with you. When the platform changes hands, so does the stewardship of that data.

A few fair questions worth asking:

  • Where will European diner and restaurant data be stored and processed once the platform sits under a US-headquartered company, and how does that line up with GDPR?
  • A card network has a clear commercial interest in dining and spend data. How might that data be used across Amex’s wider business?
  • Does folding Resy, Tock and TheFork together concentrate more of your guests’ information in one place than you are comfortable with?

None of this means anything is wrong. American Express is a serious, regulated company. But ownership decides who controls the data and which legal regime applies, and those are reasonable things to weigh before you tie your guest relationships to a platform.

The commission model is unlikely to get cheaper

TheFork’s core model charges restaurants commission on covers booked through its marketplace (around €2.60 per cover) on top of its subscription tiers. Acquisitions are usually made to grow revenue, not shrink it. A new owner with shareholders to answer to is a reason to expect the marketplace economics to hold steady or tighten, not to loosen.

Marketplace reach vs. owning your guests

TheFork’s real strength is discovery: millions of diners browsing for somewhere to eat, with a direct line to TripAdvisor reviews. That is genuinely useful, especially for restaurants in tourist-heavy markets like France, Spain and Italy. The trade-off is that you pay for every cover – including regulars who would have booked you directly anyway – and the guest relationship lives on the platform rather than with your restaurant.

The independence question

An acquisition like this is a good moment to ask a simple question: do you want your booking system to be a marketplace that owns your guest relationship, or a tool that you own?

Resos is built for the second answer. We are an independent, EU-based company founded in Denmark, so your data stays under European data protection by default. We charge a flat monthly price with no commission on any plan – your regulars never cost you a per-cover fee – and we do not run a diner marketplace that sits between you and your guests. You keep the relationship, the data and the margin.

To be clear, that is a different model, not a better fit for everyone. If most of your bookings come from tourists discovering you on a marketplace, that reach has real value. But if your guests already know you – and book through your own website, Google and word of mouth – paying commission on every cover is hard to justify.

Thinking about switching?

If the acquisition has you reconsidering, you do not have to start from scratch. Our import tool brings over your existing bookings and guest data, and most restaurants are up and running within an hour. You can run Resos alongside your current setup on a free plan first and see how it feels before committing.

For the official details of the transaction, see American Express’s announcement.