Tock Becomes the First Reservation Platform to Launch Wine Sales

Can’t make it to your favorite vineyard? Tock will ship your favorite bottles right to your door.

Adding to the company’s rapidly growing list of offerings outside traditional table bookings, Tock has launched Tock Wine Shop ahead of the busy holiday entertaining season. This makes it the first reservations platform to bypass the three-tier system to offer direct-to-consumer bottle sales nationwide.

"The three-tier system is antiquated, penalizes the winery, drives up costs, and limits consumer choice,” writes CEO Nick Kokonas in a press release regarding the new shop. “Tock has the scale and capability to successfully bring this industry-disrupting platform to market, and we believe this will be a win-win for everyone.”

The shop launch is largely a response to the massive interest Tock users (of which the company reports there are 19 million and counting) have continued to show in wine and drinking-related experiences, with the platform reporting a 175% increase in winery bookings for tours and tastings in the past two years. 30 winery partners — including well-known producers like Heitz Cellar, MacRostie Winery Estate, Tank Garage Winery and Round Pond Estate — are part of the initial launch, and a representative from Tock noted that hundreds of partners are ramping up to go live on the platform in the coming weeks. For those looking to use the wine shop for gifting or collecting, bottles that were previously exclusive to in-person tastings will now also be available for shipping directly to consumers.

Tock’s 2021 acquisition by web design and ecommerce platform Squarespace makes this foray into wine online wine sales especially fitting, but the expansion also serves as yet another example of how Kokonas and his team are thinking beyond putting bodies in seats on restaurant floors. In the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in March of 2020, Tock 2.0 launched to give restaurants an integrated reservation, takeout, and delivery system with all of the bells and whistles, including pandemic-friendly floor-plan customizations and advanced waitlisting. Another key development to Tock’s platform to support restaurants during the pandemic allowed for two-way messaging so guests could respond directly to operators when they received a notice about time limits for their booking, such as a cap of two hours and 15 minutes for tables of four, and two hours for tables of two. In March of 2020, the platform also rolled out to Tock-To-Go, which gives users the opportunity to order delivery and take-out meals and cocktails.

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