Billed as an “on-demand craft food marketplace,” WoodSpoon has raised $2 million in seed funding to expand its operations. The company, which we profiled back in July, essentially connects customers to home chefs. It started because the two Israel-born co-founders were craving some good home cooking and saw an opportunity to carve out a niche in the growing delivery world as they started working on the app about two years ago. “We just missed our home food, the Middle Eastern dishes,” said co-founder and CMO Merav Rozengarten. “We thought to […]
The new partnership between Jimmy John’s and DoorDash demonstrates that even with a “freaky fast” in-house delivery fleet that’s not going anywhere, there is immense power in the platform marketplace. Jimmy John’s and DoorDash announced the two had broken ground on the now-public delivery giant’s new program that allows restaurants to do their own delivery but tap into the DoorDash app. The sandwich maker was the first major brand to sign onto the service after testing the model in 100 restaurants for six months. According to the press release Inspire […]
Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises, parent company of Maggiano’s Little Italy and Shaw’s Crab House, among others, has launched a new virtual restaurant in partnership with Barilla, the world’s largest pasta producer. Available exclusively on Grubhub, Barilla Italian Pasteria offers pasta-based comfort foods delivered directly to consumers.
One year after his “The Four Horsemen of the Delivery Apocalypse” lit up industry LinkedIn pages, Thanx CEO Zach Goldstein’s latest manifesto calls for further regulation of third-party delivery brands centered on data sharing and immediate financial relief for all of the restaurants trying to survive a monumentally challenging winter season.
The Greene Turtle, a Maryland-based sports bar chain that saw its corporate headcount shrink from 700 to 30 during the pandemic, is rethinking a brand refresh that ready for primetime just as the COVID crisis hit the restaurant industry.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 […]
