The Essential Chefs+Tech: June

All the best stuff that happened in the restaurant + technology space, June 2014 edition

(If you like this, you’ll love the weekly Chefs+Tech newsletter.)

This pay-for-a-reservation trend heats up, big time.

Thing I didn’t think would become a big thing: buying a reservation at a restaurant. I was wrong, and the “fad” seems here to stay. In April, Table8 launched in San Francisco, offering people the opportunity to purchase a prime reservation at top restaurants in San Francisco. This week, Eater co-founder Ben Leventhal and entrepreneur/opportunist Gary Vaynerchuk announced more details about Resy, a similar service that allows users to pay for hot reservations with short notice. Similar to Table8, Resy partners with the restaurants, adding an additional revenue stream while giving paying diners the exact table they want.

Eater has the extensive (and it’s seriously long) interview in which the founders talk about the product, about its future, and about the idea of selling a reservation, generally. Worth a skim to understand the business model and thinking behind it — instead of worrying that the service is elitist, they say — again, similar to SF’s Table8 — that they are placing value on a convenience factor and honoring diners’ time.

So, here we are. Should it bother me that you can pay extra to get a sweet table at the last second? Probably not. Does it? Kinda? Since the restaurant takes a cut, I’m more apt to let it slide — moreso than, say, a certain site out of New York City or a hack of a restaurant’s online reservation system. Regardless, this space is interesting and fast changing. Fascinating.

And later in the month, the plot thickens.

No restaurant tech trend is as polarizing as the wave of pay-for-reservation apps. For a long time, a reservation was a courtesy; a plan. But as restaurants grow in popularity and become destinations in their own right (instead of, say, a place to go before a show or a party or a bar or any other event), the reservation becomes the start of the show. Landing a table at the right time is an art, and several companies have found ways to capitalize on it, while giving restaurants a cut of the profit.

I’ve covered this nearly to exhaustion and it’ll be a while until we see where this trend goes. Until then, the New York Times (on it!) tackles the idea in its Opinion pages, offering different perspectives from a chef, an economist, a food editor, and a restaurant owner. The interesting thing about this debate, to me, is that I can see the arguments from all sides. This is such a brand new idea and literally changes some of the social interactions around restaurants; it will likely take some time for everyone to get used to it.

One contributor, Chef Alex Stupak of C+T favorite Empellon, was not happy with the way his opinion was represented by the Times — likely after some level of editing and commenter/community backlash. He addressed it on Twitter with a series of Tweets; the issue seems to have blown over for now.

Nate Silver takes on the enormous responsibility of naming the country’s best burrito.

We can argue about it ‘til we’re blue in the face, but Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight is taking on a highly scientific approach to the age-old question: Who makes America’s best burrito?

This all started when Silver launched his own “burrito bracket” to find the best burrito near his Chicago home. (He never finished, he says, because he was distracted by other projects. We understand.) So now with a website staff and surely plenty an eager tester at his disposal, he gives us the national, 64-restaurant burrito bracket. One very lucky journalist is already crisscrossing the country, sampling burritos from each restaurant on the list. (Also, a fun fact: FiveThirtyEight determined there are 67,391 US restaurants that serve a burrito and “To try each one, even if you consumed a different burrito for breakfast, lunch and dinner each day, would require more than 60 years and run you close to 50 million calories.”)

The FiveThirtyEight post on the matter is worth a read, as it details the rigorous process that will determine the Best Burrito. But in the process, they’re going to try to address some other restuarant-tech-related questions: “How should you evaluate crowdsourced reviews as compared to the recommendations from a professional critic, or a trusted friend? Are there identifiable biases in the review sites and ways to correct for them? When using sites like Yelp, should you pay more attention to the number of reviews, or to the average rating?” Good luck and godspeed. Pulling for you, El Farolito! (I am jealous of the burrito-tester.)

Restaurants get in on that buzzy “sharing economy” thing.

The buzziest of buzz-phrases lately: “The Sharing Economy.” We hear the term regarding cars, apartments, even time and physical skill. But what does the sharing economy have to do with restaurants?

Plenty, actually, thanks to some emerging new businesses. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but two new ideas on the radar this week. The first, CookApp, connects chefs with diners — but allows the chef to host a dinner at their own home. Sort of a dinner party 2.0 situation. Search by city and neighborhood to find an upcoming meal near you, and pay a “suggested donation” that presumably keeps this whole situation legal (as opposed to “operating a restaurant out of one’s home” which I’m sure some local governments/health departments would have a problem with.) CookApp is or is about to be in 27 cities worldwide, including eight in North America, four in Europe, and 15 in Latin America.

Similarly, sharing pioneer/superstar Airbnb is looking for hosts to participate in a pilot program to host home-cooked meals. The program is starting in San Francisco and will cost about $25 per person for a three-course meal.

This model isn’t new; a company called EatWith has been doing this with reasonable success around the world for some time. But as with Airbnb’s original business model, it’s probably only a matter of time until local regulators catch up to this new mode of sharing. We’ll see how this goes.

In totally unexpected news, Priceline acquired OpenTable for $2.6 Billion in cash.

Earlier this week, Priceline announced it will acquire OpenTable for $2.6 billion in cash. It was a move that surprised a lot of people (this writer included). According to top execs on both sides, OpenTable will continue business as usual for now.

What does it mean when, what I’d consider one of, if not the, original restaurants+tech company sells? This remains to be seen, but I have a few guesses. It means the space is ready for innovation. Anyone following the reservations space has known this for a while; OT may have the restaurants, but the startups have the technology. It means that the general traveling public probably considers planning a dining excursion to be on a similar level to planning travel: worth research and forethought. It means the scene is ready for something new: is it Resy or Table8 or another reservations company? Something that’s going to come out of that patent Apple filed last year? Something else? (Ooh, this is exciting.)

If you’re curious, Eater has a solid report on OpenTable by the numbers, from its inception through last week’s sale.

Then I wrote a thing about restaurant tech that I’m quite proud of.

I’m thankful to have been asked to participate in Food+Tech Connect’s Hack//Dining online conversation because it gives me an opportunity to put into words all of the trends, excitement, and change I’ve seen in the restaurant + technology space so far. My contribution, titled Four Ways Technology Improves the Dining Out Experience, explains on a broad level, the trends, ideas, and changes I’ve seen in the restaurant + tech space so far. Most importantly, for a new business or idea to succeed, it needs to serve at least one (but hopefully more) of the following purposes: discovery, efficiency, novelty, or understanding. You can read a whole lot more about these ideas, including a few examples of those who are smartly taking advantage of the market.

It’s an exciting time for food-tech; very excited to be a part of it.