Where We Are, And Where We Are Going

Ando delivered its first order, free of charge, just over a year ago. We publicly launched last summer, serving a small chunk of Midtown East in Manhattan. In the months since, we’ve expanded that zone to include most of Midtown, from 72nd St down to 36th, from the East Side to 8th Ave.

We’ve delivered cheesesteaks, buckets of fried chicken, failed sandwich experiments called The Ernesto, three types of bibimbap, salads, grain bowls (who would have expected that?), and so much more.

We’ve hidden a coloring book in our app (find it yet?). We’ve changed how we think about photographing our dishes and writing about them — we want not only to tell you what our dishes are but also what inspired them and why we made them. We launched web-ordering but still haven’t launched an Android app (we’ve been focused on our iOS experience so far).

We made the decision to list Ando on Seamless because we want to find more ways for people to experience Ando, no matter where they’re coming from.

We’ve done a lot, and we’ve gotten some flak for some of our decisions. We didn’t always agree internally, but we all agreed on one thing wholeheartedly — we need to try new things and to take risks in service of creating an amazing experience, even if they were ultimately failures. Remember Ando Labs? Or the promo code debacle of summer 2016? Yeah, we’re trying to forget too… :)

We haven’t done enough. Our food is getting there, but we know certain things haven’t lived up to the promises we’ve made. Our app isn’t yet as fun as it could be. Our voice is still tentative, still figuring out who and what it wants to be. The point is: we’re learning.

And now, we’re getting ready for some of the biggest changes to Ando since launching last year:

First, we are expanding to downtown Manhattan. To start, this means 28th st to Houston, 2nd ave to 8th avenue. We’ll increase that zone when we are ready with the goal of being able to serve a large chunk of Manhattan from Houston to 96th st. We’re excited, and if you are too, you can order here.

We’re adding to our leadership team. We’re working out all the details and will be sharing more news on this front in the coming weeks.

Finally, and most importantly, we’re rethinking our menu. In our old menu structure, we bit off more than we could chew, making it hard to deliver the top-notch experience we are constantly striving to achieve. We were assembling bowls, loading up sandwiches, frying chicken and egg rolls, grilling chicken teriyaki, and making salads, with the hope that we could do all of this while maintaining speed, quality, and efficiency. We were wrong, and now we are making changes — fast.

We’ve consolidated our menu down to a few menu categories, adding items to these categories where needed: sandwiches, salads, etc (we didn’t want to call this one “fried things”), drinks, and desserts. We will continue to build, to add, and to change. That’s part of who we are, but it also means that occasionally we have to remove items like we recently did with the bibimbap.

We know some of you loved them. Hell, we loved them too. But for Ando to grow and maintain our commitment to quality, we have to think critically about what we serve and why we serve it. We don’t believe we could continue to deliver on bibim. They were expensive to make, to the point we couldn’t sell them at a reasonable price. They required more labor than our kitchen could sustain. They weren’t always consistent. So for now they are being retired, but there’s a good chance they’ll come back as specials or seasonal offerings one day. Stay tuned.

We’re grateful to everyone who’s joined us on this journey and excited to meet those who join us in the future. From our staff to our friends + family to our customers, we wouldn’t have been able to make it this far without your patience, support, and willingness to experiment with us.

This is just the beginning. As we evolve, we’re going to continue the conversation with our community about what’s happening and why it’s happening. If you have an idea on how we can get better, please let us know at hello@andofood.com. We’re here and ready to listen.

Best,
Anoop Pillarisetti, Head of Experience @Ando