It’s Friday night and you’ve been meaning to try the buzzy new restaurant in town. The only problem? You don’t have a reservation. Snagging a last-minute table at the most sought-after spots often means constantly checking for reservations. And for restaurants, last-minute cancellations can mean empty seats on what should have been a busy night.
Enter DINR, the Canadian reservation platform that connects diners with those coveted last-minute tables while helping restaurants fill seats that might otherwise go empty. But what began as a simple solution for diners and restaurants has evolved into something much bigger.
From Fintech to Food and Hospitality
For DINR CEO Jennifer Tremblay, the path to hospitality hasn’t exactly been linear. She was still working at fintech startups in 2020 when the pandemic brought the restaurant industry to a standstill. With dining rooms closed and restrictions changing frequently across the country, restaurants were scrambling to find ways to survive.
Alcohol sales in Canadian restaurants were particularly complicated, and Tremblay noticed that many restaurants were sitting on valuable wine inventories they were struggling to sell.
She saw an opportunity to help. Tremblay launched Somm, a “pocket sommelier” wine discovery platform that connected consumers with recommendations from local restaurants, wineries and other hospitality businesses. It gave restaurants another way to reach consumers and generate revenue at a time when they needed it the most.
What began as a side project would ultimately shape Tremblay’s approach to the hospitality industry: finding ways to make life easier for both diners and the businesses serving them.
Tremblay says that Somm was never meant to be a “full-time, all-in endeavour,” but interest in the platform continued to grow. As her involvement in the hospitality space deepened, she and her partner, Paul Stasiewich saw an opportunity to take that experience further.
In 2022, they acquired DINR, a restaurant reservation app originally developed by the team behind Montreal’s Michelin-recommended Garde Manger. The goal was simple: help restaurants fill same-day cancellations. Diners could search for day-of reservations and receive instant notifications when a table became available.
Both Tremblay and Stasiewich were already avid DINR users, but they saw the potential to take the platform much further. “We kind of took that initial seed, which I’d say was less about the offering itself,” she explains. “It was more about, ‘Hey, these guys already have a really good starting point for the caliber of chefs and restaurants they work with. Let’s use this as the springboard to build what we want for not only Canada but hopefully some fun and exciting international announcements soon too.’”
Beyond the Reservations: Building A Lifestyle Platform
Since acquiring DINR in 2022, Tremblay and Stasiewich have expanded the platform’s presence from five Canadian cities – Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Vancouver and Calgary – to 16 across the country.
DINR has also evolved far beyond last-minute reservations into a lifestyle platform built around the same premise: access to sought-after experiences. Through DINR Premium, members can enjoy benefits ranging from preferred pricing at landmark hotels to access to luxury travel clubs and private wine clubs. These include intimate dinners like the one ELLE Gourmet hosted earlier this year at Toronto’s Michelin-recognized Lucie.
These chef collaborations and one-night-only dinners offers diners access to exclusive culinary experiences while helping restaurants reach new audiences. And DINR’s involvement goes well beyond simply filling seats. “We’re basically committing that those events are going to be successful for the restaurant,” she says. “We’re doing active email campaigns and social media, all of the things that a partner would expect, which goes well beyond what a more traditional software or utility would do.”
DINR’s Approach to Putting Restaurants First
After six years working in hospitality, Tremblay says the resilience of Canadian restauranteurs has stuck with her the most. “The amount of times that they’ve had to pivot, change their business model, spin pop-ups, basically do anything to survive,” she shares. “They have to get really scrappy and creative unless they’re backed by a very big restaurant group, which most of the best restaurants aren’t.”
This deep understanding of the challenges restaurants face has helped shape her approach to DINR. “I’m not from the restaurant industry. I was just a really great consumer that loved the space,” Tremblay says.
Perhaps the biggest demonstration of that came in 2024, when DINR eliminated fees for restaurants.
Traditionally, restaurants pay a fee to be featured on a reservation platform in exchange for boosted visibility and access to diners anytime of day. But with restaurants already operating on slim margins, Tremblay questioned why they should have to pay for this service. “To me, the best restaurants shouldn’t have to pay to fill their houses,” she explains.
So DINR pivoted to a new model that eliminated restaurant fees while maintaining an invitation-only list of restaurants selected for their culinary merit. “We’re never going to be a huge platform that has a ton of restaurants because we want it to stay very focused on merit, caliber and quality,” she explains.
The decision meant giving up what Tremblay describes as “a meaningful source of revenue,” but it has changed the relationship between DINR and the restaurants it works with. “We end up being like a partner in their success and not just another bill to pay,” Tremblay says.
Carefully Curated Restaurants: From Fine Dining to Hidden Gems
So what does it take for a restaurant to earn a place on DINR? For Tremblay and Stasiewich, it’s about finding restaurants that are exceptional at what they do.
DINR currently features over 140 restaurants across Canada, ranging from fine dining destinations to neighbourhood favourites. Among them are Michelin-recognized Bar Les Incompetents in St. Catharines or Song (by Kin Kao) in Vancouver. Then there’s The Hamptons in Toronto, a spot Tremblay considers a hidden gem.
While Tremblay and Stasiewich bring their own favourites to the platform, they also look to trusted Canadian tastemakers for recommendations.
“If David Minicucci at Osteria Giulia and Giulietta is telling me about an amazing new restaurant that we should be checking out, or an iconic one that we haven’t onboarded yet, that’s usually a pretty quick turnaround that I’ll go take a peek at it,” she says.
The result is a selective restaurant list that takes some of the guesswork out of deciding where to eat, particularly when visiting an unfamiliar city. DINR users don’t have to “sift through the noise of a lot of other bigger platforms,” she says. Whether it’s an ambitious tasting menu or a casual neighbourhood favourite, Tremblay’s criteria remain the same: finding restaurants that are among the best at what they do.
A New Partnership: Earn Aeroplan Points By Booking
Tremblay’s big-picture approach to has positioned DINR for unique partnerships beyond the hospitality industry. In October 2026, Aeroplan announced a new type of partnership with DINR, recognizing the platform’s potential to further connect Air Canada travellers with the best of Canada’s culinary scene. It builds on DINR’s existing relationship with Air Canada through the Best New Restaurants program.
The partnership gives DINR Premium members the opportunity to earn Aeroplan points through restaurant reservations, with 100 or more points awarded on completed reservations, as well as one point for every dollar spent on event tickets. New DINR Premium memberships also come with a 1,000-point welcome bonus.
“We share similar values with the folks at Aeroplan and Air Canada around this notion of flying for food and building travel and life experiences around new cultural experiences,” Tremblay says.
What’s Next for DINR?
Looking ahead, Tremblay is already teasing DINR’s next big announcement: international expansion. But she’s keeping the destination under wraps. “It’s a place that has a super fragmented reservation market that travelers have a really hard time unlocking,” she shares.
For Tremblay, the appeal of building a business around dining goes beyond securing that coveted reservation. Food is part of so many of life’s most important moments, from family celebrations to catching up with long-time friends. “To build a business that celebrates that universality and goes across cultures, across demographics, across age groups, is really special,” Tremblay says.
So where will she be dining to celebrate DINR’s latest milestone? “My little girl’s turning two a few days after this [announcement] goes live. We’re definitely going to open a really nice bottle of Champagne,” she says. “But beyond that, I have no idea. I think we might just just enjoy being back together as a family with a little more balance again.”
