The Feed

Brendan Sweeney is the Co-Founder and CEO of Popmenu, a direct end-to-end platform that provides a website builder, online ordering platform, delivery aggregator, and more to over 6,000 small and medium sized restaurants. We'll chat about how the team used its outsider mindset to identify major whitespace for restaurants, the impact of first-party reviews on SEO, and the need for consolidation and...

Nabeel Alamgir is the Co-Founder and CEO of Lunchbox, an omnichannel white-label ordering solution for virtual and physical brands like C3, 16 Handles, and Fuku that has raised over $70mm to date. In this episode we’ll talk about the accelerated consolidation in this space from players like DoorDash and Olo, how Lunchbox is able to retarget customers from third-party delivery apps over to direct c...

Michael Suswal is the Co-Founder and Chief Business officer of Standard AI, an autonomous checkout startup that’s raised over $250mm for its AI-based computer vision technology. In this episode we’ll talk about why Standard chose to retrofit vs. compete against existing convenience stores, how c-stores plan to leverage Standard to compete against Gopuff and DoorDash, and the role of the retail exp...

Chaz Flexman is the Co-Founder & CEO of Starday Foods, a next-gen food conglomerate that leverages best practices from the software industry to quickly test, launch, and iterate on CPG brands like All Day seasonings and Gooey Snacks. In this episode, we’ll chat about the processes that enable Starday to launch new brands for less than 250k in six months, how it approaches online and offline re...

Dan Folkman is the SVP of Business at Gopuff, the market leader in delivery of instant needs. Since its start on college campuses in 2013, Gopuff has evolved from selling convenience goods to a selection of over 4,000 unique items ranging from prepared food to liquor, produce, and beauty products, and it’s just getting started. In this episode, we’ll dive into what sets Gopuff apart from newer 15-...

Alice Crowder is the CMO of Krystal, a 300-unit regional QSR operating across the Southeast. The iconic Georgia-based slider chain was acquired out of bankruptcy by Fortress at the beginning of the pandemic and has since transformed itself through the launch of new AI-powered drive-thrus and celebrity-branded locations from former Giants player Victor Cruz. In this episode, we’ll dive into how Kry...

Clayton Wood is the CEO of Picnic, an automated pizza station that can improve foodservice labor costs by as much as two-thirds, doubling to tripling four-wall EBITDA margins. Picnic is currently being used on-premise at stadiums and will soon be powering delivery for national pizza chains, convenience stores, grocers, and much more. In this episode, we’ll chat about what makes the pizza industry...

Kristen Barnett is the Founder & CEO of Hungry House, a next-gen quick serve concept that curates a rotating selection of virtual brands from up-and-coming chefs and food influencers. In this episode, we’ll talk about the early days of Kristen’s experiences at Zuul and Dig (fka Dig Inn), the challenges behind customer acquisition, and her outlook on the ghost kitchen landscape.

Liz Moskow is the former VP of Brand Development at Ordermark/Nextbite. In this episode we’ll talk about what it takes to create a virtual brand, how technology companies are deploying these brands across thousands of independent restaurants, and the pitfalls caused by a lack of transparency that has spread wide throughout the industry.

Jordan Boesch is the Founder & CEO of 7Shifts, a Union Square Hospitality-backed labor management platform for restaurants. In the episode we’ll talk about how restaurateurs are leveraging his technology to improve working culture and their bottom line. More importantly, we’ll dive into how the best operators are managing to attract and retain talent amidst a shortage of 1 million workers.

George Jacobs is the Founder & CEO of Acelerate, an order aggregator and licensor of seven virtual brands. Jacobs has spent 28 years in the restaurant industry from working at his family’s pizzeria to joining the founding team of DoorDash Drive. This past summer, the startup announced a $14.4mm series A from Sequoia. In the episode, we cover the early days of DoorDash, the role of marketplaces...

Mike LaVitola is the Co-Founder & CEO of Foxtrot- a corner store that lives in our neighborhoods and on our phones. What started out as an online warehouse has evolved into an all day cafe and lounge that stocks 1,500 highly curated SKUs from 150 different suppliers. We chat about the flywheel of omnichannel retail, the future of CPG discovery, the role of ultrafast delivery, and much more.

Andrew Rigie is the Executive Director of the New York City Hospitality Alliance. Andrew was a driving force behind the recent set of NYC legislation that regulates restaurant delivery commissions charged by third-party marketplaces as well as data sharing provisions. We chat about how the regulations shifted from temporary to permanent, the externalities of fee caps, and the latest set of legisla...

Christine de Wendel is the Co-Founder and CEO of Sunday, a new QR-based payment platform that is looking to improve the guest and server experience at restaurants, hotels, bars, and cafés across the world. We chat about everything from the complex merchant payment system in Europe and the US, what it takes to be a consumer-facing wallet, and how Sunday will enable restaurants to leverage valuable...

Barnaby Montgomery is the Co-Founder & CEO of Yummy.com, one of the first online grocers to deliver in 30 minutes or less since 2002. We chat about everything from unit economics of newer quick commerce players to inventory curation and the tradeoffs between full time drivers and gig workers.

Paul Shapiro is the Founder & CEO of the Better Meat Co, a startup with the second largest mycoprotein fermentation plant in the world. Imagine walking into a Shake Shack and ordering a burger blended with fungi-based protein to form a patty that contains 50% less meat. That’s what Paul and his team are working to build with foodservice and CPG brands for poultry, seafood, and beef products as...

Ilir Sela is the Founder & CEO of Slice, a dedicated marketplace and end-to-end ordering solution for over 16,000 independent pizzerias nationwide. Instead of 20-30% commissions of DoorDash and Uber Eats, Slice charges restaurants a flat $2 fee for any order above $10. We chat about everything from the $47bn highly fragmented pizza landscape to the startup’s expansion into building its own POS...

David Bishop is a Partner at Brick Meets Click, a decade-old consulting and research firm in the e-Grocery space. Each month, David runs a survey that is considered one of the industry’s most prominent benchmarks tracking monthly online sales across delivery, pickup, and ship-to-home. We chat about everything from Amazon’s grocery strategy to the fight between third-party marketplace and tradition...

Ashwin Wadekar is the Chief of Staff at Gorillas, a new pure-play small basket grocer that delivers items in less than 10 minutes from over 115 dark stores. We chat about everything including the shift in consumer behavior from weekly stockups to on-demand purchasing, Gorillas’ full-time labor model, and sustainability when it comes to food waste and e-bikes. If you’re curious about the battle of...

Ellis McCue is the CEO of Territory Foods, a hyperlocal marketplace of personalized, chef-driven meals. Territory has created a distributed network of commissaries in 24 cities across the country that deliver pre-made dishes cooked by restaurants and chefs to customers who don’t want to sacrifice wholesome, healthy food for convenience. We chat about everything including the rise of the micro-chef...

Chris Baggott is the Founder and CEO of Clustertruck a fully-vertical delivery service that serves over 80 dishes across multiple cuisines throughout the Midwest. Prior to ClusterTruck, Chris sold Compendium Software to Oracle and took ExactTarget public before it was eventually acquired by Salesforce. We chat about everything from how ClusterTruck is able to coordinate its kitchen-to-doorstep tim...

Pradeep Elankumaran is the Co-Founder and CEO of Farmstead, a same-day online only grocer that delivers a selection of 1500 fresh items at a fraction of the cost of its competitors. As online grocery penetration reached 10% of the total trillion dollar spend in the US, Farmstead is helping traditional brick and mortar grocers open up new delivery hubs that can fulfill 2,000 delivery slots per day....

Jaydeep Barman is the Co-Founder and CEO of Mumbia-based Rebel Foods, The World's Largest Internet Restaurant with 320 ghost kitchens in three continents powering over 26 native and third-party brands like Wendy's. Founded in 2011 as Faasos, a QSR biryani chain, the startup quickly saw most of its sales go towards delivery with 73% of customers reporting having never visited a store. After realizi...

Matt Schwartz is the co-founder and CEO of Afresh, an AI-powered merchandising and ordering operating system helping grocers save 100s of billions of dollars caused by food waste, inventory shocks, and online order fulfillment headaches within this trillion dollar industry. This was a really engaging discussion about the legacy technology that grocers have relied upon for decades and the trickle d...

Frank Beard is a retail consultant, speaker, and writer who is a thought leader in the convenience store space and Sam Polk is the CEO of Everytable, a retailer of pre-prepared meals whose mission is to make nutritious, delicious food accessible and affordable in every community. 93% of Americans live within a 10 minute drive of a convenience store, making them incredibly attractive real estate. I...