This new interesting project makes the struggle of booking tables at popular restaurants into a fun game

Reservation Gym is a website where you practise booking a table. Pick your restaurant, choose your date, add your details, and race against time. At the end, you receive a score that tells you your chances of actually getting in. Pic/iStock

If you have scrambled to make a reservation at Papa's, Paradox, Masque or any of the other tough spots in Mumbai or elsewhere. You are exactly who Yuck Collective had in mind. The collective is a trio of comics Hari Krishna, Neelaksh Mathur, and Vijeth VS. "We like to define ourselves as an art collective. The purpose of Yuck Collective is for us to express comedy as a genre through different formats," says Mathur.

Their latest project is Reservation Gym, which has garnered many views on social media but hasn't gone viral yet, in their words. But it is part social commentary, part coping mechanism, and fully a reflection of the restaurant reservation culture in India.

Simply put, Reservation Gym is a website where you practise booking a table. Pick your restaurant, choose your date, add your details, and race against time. At the end, you receive a score that tells you your chances of actually getting in.

(From left) Yuck Collective founders Hari Krishna, Vijeth VS and Neelaksh Mathur

Like most good ideas, nay, jokes, Reservation Gym began with a shared problem. The founders, who once lived together in Bengaluru, found themselves repeatedly shut out of the city's hottest tables. "It's like a tatkal situation happening with restaurants," says Mathur, describing the now-familiar ritual of racing against time for a slot. "We chose mostly Mumbai and Bengaluru restaurants where we have had to experience the reservation process."

But why did they think of a gym? "The insight is generally from a problem that you're facing, and then the solution is whatever pops into your head. I think, just while riffing between the three of us, it just came out: Wouldn't it be funny if you could have practised before filling the form? And then we just kind of developed on top of that," says Krishna.

The joke, for Reservation Gym, was simpler. If booking a table feels like a competitive sport, why not train for it?

The result is a slick, interactive interface that mimics the pressure of real booking platforms.

The look and feel of it is much like a video game of the '90s, complete with pixelated artwork and font. And the experience is intentionally stressful. You hesitate, you lose. You overthink, someone else gets the table. And when it's over, the site hands you a brutally honest score.

What makes the project land is how specific it feels. It understands that for many young city dwellers, getting into a restaurant has become about timing and reflexes. The three admit that they also share a healthy dose of curiosity about emerging urban trends, which sparks such ideas. Previously, they have worked on another digital product where users can paint, but have to wait for the paint to dry, as one would in real life.

"We would like to spot trends early, be a part of any kind of brewing culture in a city, whether that is the food scene, music scene, or cocktail scene," adds Vijeth.

Previously, they have also hosted a festival at Cubbon Park in Bengaluru, a space whose watchmen notoriously restrict groups from meeting up for hobbies. But the people of Bengaluru showed up. "They were not there forming groups. They were there from afar, like, waving to us and, almost like adults playing into these silly jokes," says Krishna.

It sounds absurd, but Yuck Collective isn't interested in just pointing at the absurdity. "Everything that we do, the core of it is comedy. It can be a practical joke, it can be something as a commentary on general consumer behaviour," explains Mathur.