This summer, Marriott International is rolling out Amazon’s version of the Echo specifically for hotel rooms. Guests can use it to call the front desk or adjust the room’s temperature and lighting, but what about ordering outside food?
In the restaurant end of the human species, the herd appears to be moving away from non-traditional locations and toward catering as the hot new way to add incremental sales without disrupting the kitchen during rush periods, while paying a lower fee than what’s charged by some third-party delivery providers. Jim Rand, the catering practice leader ezCater went as far as telling me “catering is the new black,” which makes sense for a business catering brand that just attracted a cool $100 million through a Series D investment led by […]
A partnership between Home Helpers and BistroMD was forged when the senior-care franchise began noticing its caregivers were bringing food from home to ensure their clients were getting enough to eat on the caregivers’ days off.
The idea of a virtual restaurant powered by a ghost kitchen has been a trendy topic in the food on demand space, but the first company built around the concept is now operating out of Pasadena, California. Kitchen United’s soft opening, friends and family nights and a few other tests are out of the way, and now the 15 concepts all under one roof are ready to start delivering. The company also has been building out its executive team: Meredith Sandland recently joined on as chief operating officer. She previously […]
Waitr may not have been top of mind just a few weeks ago, but the Lake Charles, Louisiana-based company will soon be in the limelight as the second publicly traded, third-party delivery network. The company has grown to 70 delivery markets offering a unique take on third-party delivery. Instead of attacking major markets, Waitr is going after smaller markets with 50,000 to 70,000 people who have the same smart phones, same restaurants and same desire for convenience as larger markets. Until recently, they were mostly living in the old world […]
Even though they lack the skyscrapers and classy cachet of big-city downtowns, suburbs are where the bulk of office workers actually reside on a given weekday—and that’s a lot to mouths to feed in the eyes of Foodsby CEO and Founder Ben Cattoor. In the six years since founding the Minneapolis-based lunchtime meal delivery service, Foodsby has expanded to 13 U.S. metros and delivers thousands of meals on any given weekday. Foodsby is designed to be more efficient than the traditional routine of everyone in an office building ordering individually. […]
Just over a year ago CEO Denny Marie Post made the comment that Red Robin doesn’t intend to fall behind in the digital race for consumers. The company had recently announced a partnership with Olo to bring online ordering to the brand and was a few months into its deal with DoorDash to offer delivery from 70-plus locations, along with testing Grubhub and Amazon.
Just like it takes a lot of food groups to make a balanced meal, it takes a lot of profit centers to make a profitable restaurant.
For instance, in-store traffic was down for two-unit Dugg Burger in Dallas, but they made some of it up through catering, along with being listed on multiple delivery platforms.
As the only publicly traded third-party restaurant delivery service, Chicago-based Grubhub is one of the largest players and one of the most scrutinized brands in the industry. According to a report from investment firm Canaccord Genuity, its stock price in the low $100s is a buy, with a new target to reach $130.
ezDispatch Targets Catering-specific Delivery Orders Business catering marketplace ezCater recently launched ezDispatch, a new offering that connects restaurants and caterers to third-party delivery companies in their area. Restaurants can opt to use ezDispatch to book catering delivery on a per-order basis or can automatically rely on ezDispatch for every ezCater order. Those with their own delivery fleet can use ezDispatch to increase capacity when they need it, and for operators without delivery the service enables them to tap into a new channel without investing in a delivery fleet. The service […]
