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Ovation Helps Restaurants Ask: Was That Good for You?

By Tom Kaiser | December 10, 2020

Ovation is helping restaurants gather real-time guest feedback that can go as far as addressing customer complaints before they’re finished eating—all in an effort to avoid the major reputation hits when angry customers blast restaurants with flaming-hot negative reviews.

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DoorDash Announces Winterization Grant Winners

By Tom Kaiser | December 10, 2020

DoorDash announced the winners of the winterization grants provided through its Main Street Strong effort. These grants are the first to be provided through the winterization program, which allocated $5,000 grants to 360 restaurants in Chicago, Denver, New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco and San Jose.

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Subway Inks Partnership with ezCater

By Tom Kaiser | December 10, 2020

Subway has teamed up with ezCater to launch a new online catering platform that will allow guests, particularly businesses, to make large orders for any occasion through participating Subway locations in the United States.

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Grubhub Launches Direct, Commission-Free Ordering

By Tom Kaiser | December 10, 2020

Grubhub has introduced a new package of marketing commission-free solutions to make it easier for restaurants to do online ordering through their own digital channels or on-premises properties.

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Reef, Aloha Poke Partner to Seed New Markets

By Nicholas Upton | December 9, 2020

The folks behind Aloha Poke, a Hawaiian-themed poke restaurant based in Chicago, see ghost kitchens as a way to seed new markets. CEO Chris Birkinshaw said it’s a natural fit for the restaurant, which has a relatively simple model and does a lot of off-premises already. He said the explosion of ghost options meant he could test his theory of seeding markets with low-overhead outlets. “I’ve always been fascinated by the idea to use a ghost kitchen to enter a marketplace in advance of going in and building brick and […]

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Who’s Who of Delivery Investing

By Nicholas Upton | December 9, 2020

In the wake of the ever-growing DoorDash IPO, it’s worth taking a look at the big investors who are cashing in on the delivery space. According to finance tracking platform Crunchbase, there’s no singular winner in the space. The closest thing to a big name in the space is the storied SoftBank Vision Fund. The subsidiary of Tokyo-based SoftBank focuses on high-growth and high-impact investments. The firm controls more than $100 billion and has invested in three big-name delivery companies. It invested twice in Uber, three times in DoorDash and […]

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Relay Gives Restaurants ‘Agnostic’ Self-Delivery Option

By Tom Kaiser | December 3, 2020

Relay Delivery, an East Coast delivery fleet operator, argues restaurants should seek a native solution that doesn’t include working with third-party providers, which its CEO argues is like letting a fox inside the hen house.

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Minnesota Restaurateur Leans into Off-Prem to Grow Empire

By Tom Kaiser | December 2, 2020

Gerard Klass, co-founder of Soul Bowl, is arguably sitting on more big ideas than any other chef in Minneapolis, and he’s well versed in how trends toward off-premises dining can fuel his plans to grow a multi-concept empire.

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Spain’s Glovo Looks to Speed Up Delivery Commerce

By Nicholas Upton | December 2, 2020

Glovo stands out as a fairly unique approach to third-party delivery that combines a lot of unique operations from dark kitchens and warehouses to tightly packed pickup centers. At first blush, the company that operates in 22 countries looks a lot like a standard third-party delivery startup. It taps into 46,000 couriers to deliver all manner of goods from thousands of restaurants and retail partners to its reported 7.4 million active customers. But under the hood, the company has combined a lot of the notable novel trends we’re spotting in […]

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DoorDash Shareholders Could See 816% Return from IPO

By Nicholas Upton | December 2, 2020

The expected DoorDash IPO is set for December 8, when the company hits the public markets. It filed a detailed prospectus (S-1) in mid-November (which you can read all about here). In short, the company reported $1.9 billion in revenue and a loss of $149 million in the last nine months. That’s more than double the revenue and less than half the losses of 2019, which is why a COVID-era IPO is such ideal timing for the company. DoorDash and its investors are looking to capitalize on the incredible surge […]

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