The Simmer

It's been a busy few weeks in the reservations business. Over the summer, American Express, which already owns Resy, announced a $400 million acquisition of rival booking service Tock. A few weeks later, OpenTable shared its own big news, a deal with Visa to grant cardholders special access to restaurants. In this extra spicy episode, Tock CEO Matt Tucker wastes no time punching up at his biggest competitor. (After the interview was recorded, both OpenTable and Visa declined to comment on the specifics of their partnership or Tucker's comments.) He also goes deep on all things reservations, including the bots and brokers causing headaches for everyone. 

Nancy Luna is a veteran restaurant industry reporter and writer. She's covered restaurants in some capacity for over two decades for outlets including The Orange County Register, Nation's Restaurant News, and Business Insider. Starting as a blogger on MySpace (!!) during her local newspaper days, Nancy has carved out a niche that's served her as a journalist for decades. On this special summer vacation episode of The Simmer, we talk media, PR, conferences and more.

What's the future of full service restaurants? It's easy to get caught up in growth and scale, but in this industry segment, customer experience *really* matters. Chip Wade took the reins at Union Square Hospitality Group from its storied founder, Danny Meyer. In this episode, we talk about how Wade will move USHG into a new era, including HQ+, the company's new training program for business leaders across industries.

In January, Owner.com announced a $33 million Series B round of funding, mainly from existing investors. According to Owner.com CRO Kyle Norton, it’s in service of helping mom-and-pop restaurants increase direct online sales. In this episode we talk about how restaurants can find and retain online customers, the evolution of restaurant discovery, and why working within narrow constraints — a particular customer set and limited customization options — is Owner’s winning strategy.

It's been almost 19 years since Olo's first customer, its founder's grandmother, placed a restaurant order via text message. In that time, tech has changed — a lot! Still, on average, just one out of every six restaurant orders comes through digital channels. In this episode, Noah Glass, known as one of the earliest restaurant technology operatives, describes this evolution and what he sees coming after nearly two decades leading Olo. Also discussed: endless shrimp, negronis, and Dollaritas. Cheers!

Music provided by Heywood Rex.

Since leaving Eleven Madison Park, the New York City fine dining restaurant he led to worldwide renown, nearly five years ago, Will Guidara has evangelized "unreasonable hospitality," or, as he defines it, the art of giving people more than they expect. As a professional speaker, he's managed to apply principles of running a successful and hospitable restaurant to other industries, from lawn care to insurance. In this episode, we tackle some big questions about the future of restaurants, including technology's role in hospitality. Plus, Will shares the ideas behind two of his newest projects, the annual Welcome Conference (returning to New York in September!), and his twice-monthly newsletter, Pre-Meal.

Music provided by Heywood Rex.

As Shake Shack's chief financial officer, Katie Fogertey manages the business's financial actions — that's obvious. But she's as much of a tech and operations expert as a financial one, taking a hands-on and holistic view of company when making decisions about its future. In this episode, we talk about "bespoke deployment" — Katie's term (that Kristen loves) for rolling out new processes and technology across the restaurants, new initiatives like drive-thrus and combo meals, and why kiosks are so important to Shake Shack's future. Music provided by Heywood Rex.

Q: Who calls restaurants on the phone? A: Far more people than we expected. Alex Sambvani is co-founder and CEO of Slang, a voice AI company that answers the phone for hundreds of restaurants. Over half of calls to restaurants often go unanswered, meaning diners don't get answers to straightforward questions like, "Can I bring my dog to your patio?" On this edition Alex talks us through the good, bad, and ugly of artificial intelligence, and teases "something big" coming from a new partnership.

Music provided by Heywood Rex.

There are restaurant people, there are technology people, and there are people who do both. Joe Unger was once a Subway franchisee, then held leadership roles at Taco Bell and Reef Technology. Now currently COO for Gosh Enterprises, a fast-growing restaurant group, Unger speaks to both sides of the business and how they work together. We talk through restaurant technology's growth from fun experiment to critical business strategy, including all of the bumps along the way.

Music provided by Heywood Rex.

Don’t call it a ghost kitchen! NYC-based Nimbus empowers the next generation of breakout food brands, providing dedicated kitchen space in hourly, daily, or monthly increments. We talk about what it takes to help food businesses launch, grow, and thrive. Plus, Camilla shares some big news: Nimbus is coming to Chicago!

Music provided by Heywood Rex.