When Tonight's Table launched, we told people it didn't track anything, full stop. Then for a few months the free version showed ads through a third-party ad network, and we rewrote this post to say so, because an old promise left quietly on a page is worse than an awkward update. As of version 2.10 the ads are gone, the ad SDK is gone, and the original promise is true again. Here's the current, complete accounting of what the app does and doesn't do with your data.
We don't run a server
There is no Tonight's Table backend. No database with your name on it, no API endpoint that logs your queries. When you tap "Find a spot," your phone talks to Apple's MapKit service directly. Your search never touches our infrastructure, because we don't have any. Your purchase status is a single fact Apple's StoreKit reports back to your device (subscribed, lifetime, or neither), and we never see your payment details, your name, or your Apple ID.
Your app data stays on your phone
Your visited log, your ratings, your search radius, your hide-chains setting, your dietary filters, your language preference, your last entered location: all of it lives in iOS UserDefaults, Apple's standard local key-value store. It's sandboxed to the app and gets deleted with the app. None of it is synced to iCloud, and none of it leaves your phone through us. If you delete the app, every piece of data you've ever entered is gone.
No ads, and no ad SDK
This is the part that changed back. The ad network we used for a while was its own company with its own data practices, and to serve and measure ads it could collect things like your device's advertising identifier, coarse location, IP address, and basic device information. That code no longer ships in the app. There is no advertising SDK, no analytics SDK, and no tracking library of any kind in Tonight's Table 2.10 and later. The app never asks iOS for tracking permission because there is nothing to track with. If you're on an older version, updating is the fix.
How the app pays for itself now
Instead of ads, Tonight's Table is a small subscription (or a one-time lifetime purchase), processed entirely by Apple. That's a better trade for privacy than ads ever were: Apple already knows what you buy on the App Store, and nobody else learns anything. Anyone who had the app before 2.10, or who bought the old Remove Ads or Pro unlock, keeps full access without paying again.
The principle
The strongest privacy posture is not collecting data you don't need, and we don't need any. We tried the version of the app where a third party collected some on our behalf, and we didn't like explaining it. So we stopped. If that ever changes again, this post will change with it.