It’s easier than ever to dine in and take out in New York City. Apps like Seamless, Delivery, Caviar, and GrubHub have taken the process of ordering and made it easy. Using a laptop or mobile phone, anyone, anywhere, is just a few clicks away from having their favorite meal delivered to wherever they happen to be. Then add in services like Group, LivingSocial, and Restarant.com, which provide deep discount offers at restaurants throughout the city and suburbs.
Everyone wins, right? Well, not really.
Little would argue that these services make life easy for the consumer. And though they do help restaurants maintain a steady flow of diners, they’re slowly but surely killing the restaurant business overall.
In an industry where margins are extremely tight, delivery apps can take up to 30% of the bill, and coupon programs can take up to 50% of the dining bill -- and that is AFTER the huge coupon discount. This can turn a meal into a loss for the restaurant” says Eddie Fahmy, long-time restauranteur, and president at A2Z Restaurant Consulting.
To find a compromise where everyone does win, Fahmy co-founded DineVite LLC. and built DineVite.me, an online and mobile app platform. Dinevite puts the power of prescheduled and spot offers back in the hands of restaurant owners. They decide how, when, and to whom discounted offers are available.
DineVite works very much in the “now” in the way it collaborates on social media. Restaurants can create offers and promotions for customers that work for them and conversely, potential diners can request private VIP offers.
“DineVite is all about creating transparency between the restaurant and the customer,” says Fahmy. “The restaurant has a voice, the customer has a voice, and they can now communicate and engage in a whole new and better way. DineVite doesn’t look to become a partner in the restaurant’s revenues, it is merely the subscription-based forum for the restaurant-consumer conversation.”
DineVite will be launching at the International Restaurant and Foodservice Show at the Jacob Javitz Convention Center on March 8-10th of 2020th in New York City. Fahmy plans to work closely with core restaurant clients to test and tweak the product to ensure that it serves both restaurants and consumers.
The company intends to expand beyond NYC during the National Restaurant Show in May 2020 at McCormick Place (Chicago). That shortlist of other cities where DineVite plans to rollout thereafter includes, but is not limited to, San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, Miami, and in Texas, Austin, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio.
DineVite intends to change the landscape. One thing is for certain - in the ever-escalating war for diners, the casualties mustn’t be the very places where we’re looking to eat. We're working to change that so that restaurants can use technology to thrive, not die.
