Save Bistro Elan

Re:Save Bistro Elan by shii on Friday June 24, 2011 @04:21PM (#2693713)

How does the food industry need disruption? Payment processing and things like that are one thing, smaller parts like menu ordering, recommendations, etc are things already being tackled all over the place...but how else would you disrupt the restaurant system? Genuinely interested in the topic and opinions.

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Re:Save Bistro Elan by thaumaturgy on Friday June 24, 2011 @04:46PM (#2693796)

I'm always happy to talk with anyone about this -- I have a couple of restaurants as clients, I care a lot about the health of their business, and they face a lot of interesting challenges.

For problems with a tech bent, the entire POS industry that restaurants rely on is ripe for the plucking. Restaurants pay tens of thousands of dollars for truly awful software operating on antique hardware, along with support contracts and all kinds of other expensive goodies.

Then there's their ordering systems: they still make phone calls to their food vendors after looking at fax printouts.

For non-tech-related stuff: restaurateurs could use help with marketing. They could use help with financing. They could use help with staff training. They could use help with organization. They could use help with customer metrics.

Things that we take for granted when it comes to improving our customer experience -- like A/B testing for example -- are completely nonexistent in these other industries, and they make up a hell of a lot more revenue than the startup field does.

I'd really like for someone else to get to these guys before I do, because they deserve a lot better than this.

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Re:Save Bistro Elan by thinkcomp on Friday June 24, 2011 @05:15PM (#2693906)

Check out http://www.facecash.com. We've tackled POS, order ahead, metrics, marketing, and mobile payments.

Unfortunately, we're not in much of a position to help ourselves:

http://www.quora.com/Aaron-Greenspan/In-Thirty-Days-Payments...

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Re:Save Bistro Elan by thaumaturgy on Friday June 24, 2011 @05:39PM (#2693998)

I'm familiar with the impact of the new law on your business (commented on it with you before).

What's the current status of FaceCash? Can you continue operating?

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Re:Save Bistro Elan by dstein on Friday June 24, 2011 @04:58PM (#2693839)

What comes to my mind is how Five Guys is hugely disrupting McDonald's and fast food chains with a simple menu of premium burgers, fries, soft drinks, and that's it. And Chipotle (coincidentally owned by McD I think), who make really good burritos, and that's it.

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Re:Save Bistro Elan by aaronblohowiak on Friday June 24, 2011 @06:16PM (#2694154)

Chipotle no longer is related to mcdonalds. They used to be an investor, I believe, but were not part o it's operations.

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Re:Save Bistro Elan by evgen on Friday June 24, 2011 @08:30PM (#2694506)

Since they serve entirely different market segments I seriously doubt that Five Guys is disrupting McDonalds. McDonalds probably pulls more profit out of Manhattan that Five Guys does across the entire country. Five Guys may have a better product, but McD has a better business...

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