The Simmer

In this special episode, Kristen and Brandon discuss two major developments in the reinvigorated reservations wars: American Express moves to acquire European booking platform TheFork for $700 million and DoorDash-owned SevenRooms launches a tool (and a stake in the ground) to make it much easier for restaurants to aggregate reservations from multiple sources. Together, these moves represent a big...

Kristen and Brandon have shaken out the cobwebs and are back with a new episode of The Simmer featuring friend-of-the-pod, Joshua Sharkey, founder and CEO of Meez, a culinary operating system and recipe management tool. Pre-Meez, Josh spent time in the kitchens of several restaurants, including New York’s Tabla and Bouley. In this episode, we cover recipe scaling and sourcing (and more nonsexy but...

A Simmer first! This LIVE edition was recorded on April 10 at the Boston University Hospitality Leadership Summit. We’re joined by Judy Thelen, co-founder and CEO of white-hot social restaurant list-keeping and recommendations app Beli. In this episode, we talk about professional criticism, Beli’s plans to work with restaurants, and its big bet that we really just want to hear from people we trust...

We love repeat guests on The Simmer! In his return to the podcast, Olo founder and CEO Noah Glass explains the next phase of his company’s evolution: the Olo Network. In this episode, we talk about Olo’s move from publicly traded company to privately held asset last year, plus the power of an ordering network and why Olo coined a new term — “second-party ordering” to describe its big bet on the fu...

Former Jose Andres Group CEO Sam Bakhshandehpour recently joined Bilt, a $10 billion loyalty platform that rewards people for paying their rent and mortgage on Bilt cards, helping to fuel the so-called “points economy.” Recently, the company released a flashy video full of top-name chefs and restaurateurs to launch Bilt Hospitality, a kind of digital concierge service targeted at restaurants. But...

Ben Leventhal’s impact on the restaurant business can not be overstated. The serial founder  successfully launched (and exited) restaurant editorial network Eater and reservations service  Resy. Now he’s back with Blackbird, a loyalty and payments platform for the restaurant industry. In this episode we talk about evolving restaurant loyalty, the so-called “reservations wars” and, of course, some...

Big reservations news from American Express this week: this summer, restaurants on Tock will transition to Resy, marking the end of the Tock brand. On the first Simmer episode with a second-time guest, Pablo Rivero, Resy CEO / SVP and Head of Amex global dining, talks us through what’s changing at Resy — and what’s not. 

It’s been a minute (actually, years) since ghost kitchens and virtual brands dominated conversations about restaurant delivery. While those businesses have largely fallen out of view (with a few notable exceptions), restaurants still need a viable digital strategy. In this episode, we talk to Maxx Freedman, founder of Spice, a growth and marketing agency for restaurants, about what restaurants are...

In this special edition of The Simmer, Kristen and Brandon talk through that viral Reddit delivery post (and its aftermath), look back on what they got wrong (and right!) about 2025, and offer a few thoughts on the year ahead.

It’s a good time to be a chicken chain. New concepts are taking off and legacy brands, like the 50-year-old El Pollo Loco, are poised for serious growth. The fire-grilled chicken brand, currently open in eight states, is planning a larger expansion. In this episode, Jill Adams, the brand’s chief marketer, talks customer expectations, AI for better and more efficient marketing efforts, and why she’...

It’s been almost a decade since Avi Goren launched Marqii to help restaurants get found on the internet. That challenge remains, but search and discovery methods and technology have changed… a lot. In this episode, we talk about discovery in the age of generative AI and the continued challenge of reputation management for restaurants.

Longtime restaurant exec and OpenTable advisory board member Chris DeSaye knows the bookings business as well as anyone and has a clear view of what comes next. In this episode, we talk DoorDash, artificial intelligence, and, of course, the always-evolving reservations biz. 

Rachael Nemeth runs a technology company, but she thinks like a hospitalitarian. Opus Training is a training operating system designed for multi-unit restaurants, helping empower front-line restaurant workers, including managers. In this episode, we talk about modern restaurant training, AI, and why the human touch is still supreme, even if the bots are helping. 

Elizabeth Tilton started her career cooking in New Orleans before moving to join the marketing team at Momofuku in New York City. Years later, she’s translated that back-of-house experience to her own consultancy, Oyster Sunday, which acts as a back office for restaurants across the country. That led to a second company, OS Benefits, which provides ACA-compliant health insurance and wellness benef...

Former restaurant executives make great restaurant technology executives. Why? They’ve seen the full picture. Before Justin Falciola joined Deliverect, he was a prospect, spending years working in tech at Papa John’s and later CKE Restaurants, parent company of Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s. In this episode, we talk pizza, drive-thrus, AI, and new opportunities — plus, of course, DoorDash’s big reservat...

Eli Feldman runs Shy Bird, a restaurant with three locations in Boston. He’s also a tech early adopter and excited (and curious!) about how AI can reshape restaurants. In this episode, we talk about Eli’s recent AI hackathon for restaurants, what tools he finds especially useful, and how we might all reimagine the future of restaurants. 

It’s a Kristen-and-Brandon summer special! The Simmer checks in on what Brandon dubs “reservation wars 3.0” as the biggest restaurant tech companies in the space — reservations and beyond — choose sides. In this episode we talk DoorDash, SevenRooms, Uber, OpenTable, Toast, Resy, Tock and more. The Simmer will return after Labor Day with more industry guests and insight. 

Restaurant catering — and the tech that powers it — is hot, hot, hot. At nearly 20 years old, ezCater is poised to take advantage of the renewed interest from office workers and the restaurants that serve them. In this episode we talk about the evolution of catering, the tech that supports it, and why a little reassurance and hand-holding goes a long way with corporate clients. 

Before Rob Edell was DoorDash’s head of DashPass, he was a restaurant tech founder building a business he eventually sold to Resy. Rob joined DoorDash years before it became the market leader it is today, and after almost a decade of the company, he’s had a front row seat to the evolving restaurant business. In this episode, we talk about DoorDash’s growth and evolution, how DashPass encourages lo...

Ilir Sela has been helping local pizzerias with purpose-built tech for over a decade. Slice got its start as an online ordering platform for independent pizzerias and now offers much more: Point of sale, loyalty, delivery, and even supply chain support, printing custom pizza boxes and delivering them to customers. In this episode, we talk about first-party and third-party delivery, the newest crop...

In this pre-recorded summer special, Kristen and Brandon ask Fred to predict the future. Lucky for us, he’s good at it. In this episode, we talk about the current state of casual dining (tl;dr: Chili’s is killing it), all those restaurant bankruptcies, and the importance of making an emotional connection with diners. 

We’re deep in an (unintentional) point of sale system theme at The Simmer. This week, Toast’s chief marketer Kelly Esten joins us to talk enterprise restaurants, artificial intelligence, and maybe accidentally perpetuate a rumor that Brandon really wants to be true.

Brandon got stuck on a plane, so Kristen flies solo in this interview with Square’s top marketer, Lindsey Irivine. In this episode, we talk about big marketing initiatives and activations, and how Square sees itself as both a restaurant and consumer brand. Plus, Lindsey shares details of Square’s new San Francisco corner store, a consumer and small business play all in one. 

Fiserv recently unveiled a new point of sale system designed to serve “upper market restaurants,” or restaurants that do more than $1 million in processing volume annually, according to Fiserv head of restaurants, Krystle Mobayeni. Krystle, also the co-founder and CEO of BentoBox, a restaurant technology company acquired by Fiserv in 2021, joins The Simmer to talk reservations, point of sale syste...

It’s our first emergency podcast! On Tuesday, the biggest day for the restaurant technology business in years, a string of major announcements had our heads spinning. But one piece of news stands out: DoorDash plans to acquire reservations and customer relationship management service SevenRooms for $1.2 billion. What does it mean? Listen as Brandon and Kristen work it out in real time.