Happy 20th Birthday, Grubhub
OpenTable launches Icons & Visa Dining Collection, Instacart + Northwell Health, ice cream sales up
Someone very special has a big birthday today… we hope you didn’t forget your gift! Plus, OpenTable’s got some overdue new features, Instacart’s snagged a new health partner, and we’ve got hot, hot data on ice cold ice cream. Read on!
This week’s edition is brought to you by ChowNow.
Today:
Grubhub Turns 20
OpenTable Fights Back
Chart Time | We All Scream for Ice Cream
lnstacart Partners with Northwell Health
3PD | Grubhub Celebrates 20th Birthday with 20,000+ Freebies
Third party delivery vanguard is Grubhub is officially turning twenty today, meaning it’s now old enough to get alcohol delivered in Paraguay, Togo, Benin and Japan. But the Chicago-based 3PD isn’t celebrating by getting hammered, instead it’s bringing the party to consumers, with a 2-week long event it’s calling the “20 Years of Deals.” GH has roped in a number of partner restaurants to each give away 20,000 free items, with Taco Bell, Wendy’s, Panera, Pizza Hut, Popeyes and McDonald’s all offering up fan favorites (the Golden Arches looks to have the most generous offer.) Meanwhile, other brands like 7-Eleven and Dunking are throwing in a more standard 20% off promo.
The Big Picture: Grubhub notes that over the past 20 years, it’s worked with 375,000 merchants, 200,000 couriers, 2,400 employees and nearly 100 million customers. Grubhub founders Mike Evans and Matt Maloney essentially created the modern 3PD industry as we know it, going on to raise $1.1 million in a 2007 Series A. The company scaled up by buying regional players like AllMenus, MenuPages, LevelUp, Tapingo, Delivered Dish, LABite, Eat24 and most importantly: NYC-based Seamless. The company went public in 2014 at a $2 billion valuation, and was then gobbled up by Just Eat Takeaway.com for $7.3 billion in 2020. The company’s new European owners have had a tough time investing in the necessary growth, ceding market share to DoorDash and Uber Eats, but new initiatives with Amazon and a foray into groceries may be reinvigorating the storied brand.
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RESERVATIONS | OpenTable Launches Icons & Visa Dining Collection
Restaurant reservation platform OpenTable announced two new products: OpenTable Icons and the Visa Dining Collection. Icons is a way to categorize the top tier restaurants on the platform, with qualifying restaurants needing something like a Michelin star or James Beard nomination. It’s now live in Boston, Chicago, DC, DFW, LA, Miami, San Diego, SF and Toronto and includes restaurants like Avec, Vespertine, and State Bird Provisions; additional restaurants in Houston and NYC are forthcoming. The Visa Dining Collection teams up with the credit card heavyweight to offer Infinite® and Infinite Privilege® (what a name…) cardholders specially reserved tables at creme de la creme restaurants like Chicago’s Virtue, LA’s Kato and vacation destinations in Mexico.
The Big Picture: OpenTable looks to be finally fighting back for lost territory it once held. With the Visa partnership, it goes after Amex’s push into the category via its acquisitions of Tock and Resy, which have cut into OpenTable’s stranglehold on fine dining even for non-cardholders. “We didn’t invent this. The reality is that this is the playing field that we are playing on,” notes CEO Debby Soo to Expedite’s Kristen Hawley. Still, there’s a lot of work left to update OpenTable’s aging platform. Maybe one of the restaurants you have in mind is all booked up tonight, so instead you’d like to pivot to takeout or delivery. While the platform nominally has tools for those orders, its “Delivery only” filter simply kicks you off-site to a 3PD or POS, with plenty of broken links along the way. “Takeout only” is little better, simply offering you a phone number to try calling.
CHART TIME | The Creamiest States
With summer heating up, Instacart has compiled data on where that cool, cool ice cream is selling best. No surprise, Vermont looks to be the scoopiest state, likely thanks to hometown heroes Ben and Jerry. America’s most popular flavors are vanilla and chocolate (boring) but a second map shows that certain regions have flavor preferences: evidently Western Canada is big for mangoes…
HEALTH | Instacart Partners with Northwell Health
Now on to some slightly healthier Instacart news, the company’s announced a new partnership with Northwell Health, New York State’s largest health system. As part of the Instacart Health initiative, the program will offer food insecure expectant mothers access to fresh food and nutritional guidance via the new Northwell’s Healthy Choices Storefront, powered by Instacart Health Fresh Funds, its category-specific online grocery stipends system.
The Big Picture: It’s been a few months since we’ve seen Instacart roll out a new health partner, after teaming up with Quest Diagnostics in February, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Jan, and Wellness West last fall. With the restaurant-oriented 3PDs now nipping at its heels in the grocery space, these biz dev partnerships offer it a defensible space in the risk-averse health sector.
A Few Good Links
Macy’s ends buyout talks. Amazon sold a used diaper, tanking a mom-and-pop biz. Olo and Bottle Rocket partner on digital experiences for restos. Swiggy and Zomato raise platform fees 20%. India eyes alcohol delivery approval. NYC regulator probes Uber, Lyft over driver lockouts. Uber launches new vacation travel options. Beef O’ Brady’s turns to SoundHound for automated voice ordering. Texas to get Michelin guide. JB Hunt operating profit down 24%. DOT has $5B in bridge repair grants. Grocer Meijer’s high-tech approach to back-to-school shopping. Whole Foods rethinks real estate, opens new small-format stores in NYC. Amazon Prime Day 2024 outpaces previous year. Teamster Prez spoke at RNC convention. Instacart Q2 due 8/6. House GOP looks for new ways to gut transpo regulations. Europe wants to onshore LEV battery production. Cityshuttle demos its cargo bike trains. Alcohol sales expansion paused in Ontario. Craveworthy opens Chicago food hall. Mapbox pushes for delivery integrations. Fisker’s vehicle sales to TNC leasor okayed. Bolt adds premium EV fleet.
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