[00:05:10] Josh Sharkey:
And it was something like you're connecting like tech savvy diners with connected or like tech savvy restaurants. Was that actually a pattern you were noticing when people were going to restaurants specifically that or just it happened to be that these restaurants that were burgeoning or, or
[00:05:26] Kristen Hawley:
I think it was, it's about the expectation. Like it was like, I mean, we're talking like people tweeting at a chef tweeting Twitter was like, you know, growing at that time.
[00:05:36]
Crazy. Like, Hey, Daniel Patterson, like, can you hold a table for me at eight o'clock? You know? And like, it wasn't a formalized process. It was just like, Oh, look, here's this side door in a way that I can interact with businesses when like brands and stuff like weren't. Taking over social media at this time there was this gap between there still is this gap between how diners were using tech to engage with restaurants and how restaurants were using tech to engage with diners and I wanted to like be in that Yeah, right and connect.
[00:06:08] Josh Sharkey:
Any like really acute memories from that time of like, holy shit. I can't believe this is happening that you were writing about?
[00:06:16] Kristen Hawley:
I remember the first comms person from DoorDash, like, sitting me down in this windowless conference room in their shared office space on Market Street in San Francisco. And telling me like we're gonna be really big and me just being like, okay, you know, I've heard this before and then be like, no, really?
[00:06:35]
And I just remember it was Christopher Payne who was the chief operating officer. He's since retired from the company but he was just so I just remember how intense he was about like demanding that I understand how big of a game changer this company was. And you do hear that all the time. I mean, I get pitched all the time and I still get the like, you don't understand, we're going to change the world.
[00:06:59]
But occasionally there are, there are people that do. So I think I love looking back on that. specific conversation because I was like, yeah, yeah, you did. You were right. You did it. Because at that, at that point, like the fact that Doordash might take over like a Grubhub, who was the market leader was like inconceivable. Like you're going to build a network from zero starting in Palo Alto, California. Okay. All right.
[00:07:24] Josh Sharkey:
This is actually, I'm excited to ask you about this because I remember when Doordash came to our restaurant, we, you know, we had already, we already had Grubhub and Seamless. They were separate. You know? Yeah. And then there was Caviar.
[00:07:34] Kristen Hawley:
Uh huh.
[00:07:35] Josh Sharkey:
And then DoorDash came. We're like, oh great, another one.
to be honest with you, I haven't, you know, run restaurants for, you know, several years now. What exactly is the difference between what DoorDash does and did that got them to where they are from, from Grubhub and Seamless?
[00:07:50] Kristen Hawley:
I mean, I'm sure they'll tell you that they're a completely different model. The big difference was that DoorDash and Uber, they dealt with the drivers. Grubhub didn't really. Like it was, it was just a different, Grubhub was for online ordering, right? And then they built a network and then they kind of like started the driver.
[00:08:09]
It's just, it was also, it was structured very differently. And it's in a way that's almost hard to explain now because it's so, it's completely changed. I think there was that. I think, you know, those Postmates, Uber, DoorDash, they put restaurants on their platform, like. Without asking. Yeah, Postmates owned by Uber now.
[00:08:28]
Caviar owned by DoorDash now. It was this growth at all costs, right? They got huge injections of capital and they were just like, they were just, they were adding everybody that they possibly could, right? Without, you didn't need to sign a contract because it wasn't. Yeah. It was, it was all like, it was very disconnected at that time.
[00:08:47]
For Uber, I think the big moment for Uber Eats was when they signed an exclusive deal with McDonald's. I remember that was, I was covering it, I worked for a media company, a media company bought my first newsletter and I briefly worked for them before they shut it down. I remember when this happened and it was like, this is how they're going to expand.
[00:09:04]
This is how they're going to go nationwide. Because that was at the time where it was like, you know, Twitash is in 20 cities and Uber's in 15. And like, it was just like every week there was like an announcement and they were one upping each other about how many cities they could be in. And then at some point that metric just fell off because it didn't matter anymore.
[00:09:20]
Just, it was like pointless. It was like, how are you judging what a city is? And they were like, we don't want to talk about it. But it was, it was wild. And there were, there was another one called E24 in San Francisco that Yelp owned. It was wild days. And I loved writing about it because it was crazy. It was just like these techies in this tech company telling restaurants that they were gonna save them or like change them for their own convenience, right?
[00:09:45]
This all started because like, I want to get something. I, the consumer, want something from you, restaurant. And restaurants being like, what the? And obviously we are where we are now, so.
[00:09:55] Josh Sharkey:
I actually totally forgot how horrific it was in the beginning when we first started with um, because we had fax machines first, right?
[00:10:03]
So we would get like these fax orders from Grubhub and things like that. But also, we were, we were the drivers. I totally forgot about that. We had a whole crew, and it was kind of like, we, we hired some drivers, like bike, bicyclists mostly. And then, like, some of our staff would do it, I would do it sometimes, you know, and, like, I've ordered it to run back out, and I was like, and I totally forgot that it was decoupled for a while, and you had to do all of your own deliveries, and it was basically, like, you were just losing money hand over fist.
[00:10:33]
Because you only, you could only do it at most like four deliveries an hour.
[00:10:37] Kristen Hawley:
Yeah.
[00:10:37] Josh Sharkey:
Then they had like these things like Relay and Homer started, which were like, you basically end up being the same thing because you have two expenses now. I totally forgot, I guess DoorDash was maybe the first that.
[00:10:49] Kristen Hawley:
Yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm always loathe to say first because it's usually wrong if you put first in a headline, but they really like took the, took that model to the next level because you know, it doesn't, DoorDash doesn't survive without its careers, without its restaurants, without its customers and like a, in a never ending flywheel circle.
[00:11:05]
So that is, that is the key. The logistics piece is key to their success. Absolutely.
[00:11:10] Josh Sharkey:
Well, we weren't here to talk about DoorDash, but that just kind of happened. But anyways, I want to talk about your work and specifically how you just think about your job. Like what's your, what seems sort of maybe a little bit ambiguous, but like, what do you view as like your role in our industry for, for what you're doing? Like what, what is the impact that you, that you're looking to have?
[00:11:33] Kristen Hawley:
Well, I'm a freelance journalist, so I write for other people as well as myself in my newsletter Expedite. I think like all journalists, you know, it's important to give honest, fair, truthful information to an audience, right? And for me, it's deciphering what perhaps the technology company is saying and what they're doing or what restaurants are doing or what what restaurants need to understand about tech companies or what a tech company's motivation is.
[00:12:04]
I don't have a very articulate way of saying this, but just restaurant people and tech people think about the world differently and a lot gets lost in translation, right? And you need to understand that a motivation of a company, a point of sale company like Toast, right? Yeah, they want to help restaurants, air quotes.
[00:12:24]
And they do. But they also need to make money. And every quarter on their earnings calls, they say, we need to make more money from our existing customers. And it's like, then they start bundling their products or then they start offering new things. And then they start pitching restaurant on like adding things.
[00:12:41]
And it's my job in that example to say, Hey, it is a corporate priority for toast to pull more money from your business. This is what they're doing. Perhaps this is useful for you, and like, this is a good business decision for you. However, like, please understand that that's why these changes are being made, right?
[00:12:58]
Very specific example. I just, I believe that people who like restaurants or work in restaurants or work in technology that supports restaurants should understand how they work. So that's fundamentally what I do, how restaurants work. And sometimes it's like super nitty gritty details, like I just explained.
[00:13:14]
And sometimes it's like big picture stuff, trends, where are we going? Stuff like that.
[00:13:19] Josh Sharkey:
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, in tech, you know, net dollar retention is a, is a really important metric, how much you're growing your current customer base. But it's really, I guess, any vendor, right? Your, your food distributors also want to sell you more product.
[00:13:31]
And so I guess, you know, understanding more of the why is, is, is really helpful.
[00:13:35] Kristen Hawley:
Yeah. Your food distributor might be using AI to price their stuff to like, get the, like, as many pennies as they can from every possible transaction, you know, just like little, little stuff like that all falls in my purview.
[00:13:46]
And then I will say too, like, I, um, I haven't talked about this yet. So breaking news. I was deeply affected by the election results last month in November. And for 2025, I'm sort of, I'm not, I'm not repositioning Expedite, but I'm taking a step back and really looking at how I should be covering the hospitality business and the future of restaurants.
[00:14:06]
And I'm doing that through a lens of, power, policy, and access, which just means like, who has the money? Who has the power? How is it going to change the restaurant experience for people who work there and people who like them? Um, and there is a ton of ways, like, you know, the incoming president has talked about immigration crackdowns.
[00:14:25]
There's a big tipping conversation and compensation over time, like all of these things on a national policy level that might affect the restaurant industry are very important and critical to its future. So, while that might be outside the narrow tech purview, it's absolutely relevant to the future of this business.
[00:14:42]
And so I plan to do a lot more coverage, not political coverage, but policy power, you know, the people with the money and how that's changing how we all experience restaurants.
[00:14:52] Josh Sharkey:
Yeah. So I mean, your audience is really restaurant operators.
[00:14:56] Kristen Hawley:
It's about a third restaurant operators for Expedite. We're talking the newsletter, but a third restaurant operators, a third people who work in the tech companies, restaurant technology companies, hospitality tech.
[00:15:08]
And a third, I would call them just restaurant enthusiasts, which is the group of people that probably work or understand technology and, and have more of, more than a passing knowledge of how the business works and just care about how a restaurant or a hospitality business works. Perhaps they like them.
[00:15:26] Josh Sharkey:
Yeah, you have your, your, your freelance work you do, and then you have expedites. Funny, I always just think of you as, you know, your Expedite. Yeah. But you do a lot, you, you write for other publications as well. I'm curious, and maybe this is just broadly speaking for a journalist or an independent journalist, but like, how do you measure success and then just, you know, iterate on that as you're, as you're doing more?
[00:15:47] Kristen Hawley:
Well, I think there's a few ways. Um, impact, right? Like, telling a story the right way. is more important than telling it first, in my opinion. Telling it first is great. I love breaking news. Every, who, every journalist does. But, I think that, one, like, hearing from people who really enjoy my work and find value in it is a marker of success, but so is a growing subscriber base.
[00:16:12]
You know, I have free subscriptions, I have paid subscriptions, paid subscriptions keep the lights on, and so there are metrics that I track, like, how many people open every edition of the newsletter, which is high, it's about half the people I send it to, which is actually quite high. How many people are signing up?
[00:16:28]
Referral traffic, um, I don't track unsubscribes. That's the metric that I don't look at. I'm too, I'm too fragile. And then for the other work that I do, the freelance work externally, you know, success there is just being able to tell a good story for a broader audience. You know, Fast Company has a ton more readers than my little niche newsletter.
[00:16:50]
And if I can explain to them why they should care about, I don't even remember what I did last time, like, Jose Andres opening a hotel in D.C., like, that's great. I would love to do that. I love to do stories about restaurants and how they work for a broad audience.
[00:17:05] Josh Sharkey:
How does that work for the third parties that you work with? Is it a mix of you saying, hey, I would love to write this story for you, and then sometimes they say, hey, could you write a story? Is it go both ways?
[00:17:15] Kristen Hawley:
It goes both ways. When I'm pitching. This is like, it's, it's like a very personal philosophy. Like I, um, I don't do a ton of pitching, but I do, like, if I get a story in my brain, then I'm like, Oh, this is perfect for Food and Wine.
[00:17:29]
Then I'll pitch it. And a lot of the stuff comes to me because of the last decade I've spent, like, making sure that I am the person on top of mind for all of these editors when they have a question about how technology works in restaurants. Yeah, I mean, 50/50, maybe, maybe, maybe 40 percent outbound on my side and 60 percent inbound.
[00:17:48] Josh Sharkey:
I mean, you write about a lot of things, so you're constantly asking questions, but, and take your time with this, but I am curious, is there a question that you wish that more people? would ask you that they rarely do or never do?
[00:18:03] Kristen Hawley:
I've never been asked that. Maybe that's the question. What do you think, Kristen? I mean, I think I try to be really honest about a couple things in my work. One is about being a woman in the technology business, which has its challenges. I think there's a reason that I spotlight women in restaurant technology in the newsletter pretty regularly because I believe we're underrepresented, and obviously, like, I want to uplift other other females in business.
[00:18:31]
The other is that it's really hard out there for creatives right now. Like, I don't love to show for subscriptions. I don't love to beg people to subscribe and pay and do all of these things. But realistically, you know, the newsletter, I make about as much money on Expedite as I did at my very first job in 2004.
[00:18:49]
Um, which is great. Like, I have a successful business. Um, and it's consistent and, you know, it's not passive income. I'm working for it, but it's regular. Everything else comes from the other projects. It's like public speaking. That's like I do a lot of moderating and events. That is the assignments that I get, uh, from magazines and other publications.
[00:19:10]
I think I would love for more people to understand, like, the hustle, and how deeply I care about getting a story right, and how hard it is, how, not hard, how, how involved it is to make sure that you're getting the facts correct, and you're asking the people who know, and you're, like, checking to make sure that you've got it right, and you're asking for comment, and you're presenting all sides of the story, and all of these things that You know, anybody with a substack account doesn't necessarily have to do.
[00:19:36]
But I do, as a professional journalist who has a good reputation and ethics and standards. So I think that it's how much goes on behind the scenes to make sure that everything that I'm sharing with my audience is. True and vetted and you know, like it's, it's the duck on the, on the pond, right? The legs are going really, really fast, but you only see them gliding along the surface. Does that answer your question?
[00:20:01] Josh Sharkey:
It does. Yeah, but now I want to ask it like, so can you maybe just talk a little bit about, about how that does work? So for example, I mean you just recently wrote about, I mean you've written about toast a lot.
[00:20:09] Kristen Hawley:
Mm hmm.
[00:20:10] Josh Sharkey:
But there was, the Uber story.
[00:20:13]
What's the sort of nuts and bolts of how you get a story right? For example, if you're, if you're working on a story about a tech company or a restaurant.
[00:20:20] Kristen Hawley:
Well, so I think the thing to remember is big tech companies have armies of communications executives and team members that are very happy to answer your questions in a way that is favorable to them. You do need to work with the PR people.
[00:20:35]
I have to work with the DoorDash comms team, right? I have to work with the Toast comms team. That's just, that's just the only, that's the way in. But, I think the story that you're referring to is the Uber. Toast delivery default thing that was misreported a couple times. What happened was that Toast told restaurants that they were changing their delivery, default delivery provider for Toast delivery services from DoorDashDrive to UberDirect.
[00:20:59]
That happened in October. That is a thing that happened that Toast doesn't want to talk about, or at least to me, they just like wouldn't. They, it was, it was, that was, it was real complicated. gymnastics back and forth that I had with them, then whatever happened within like a six week period, something changed.
[00:21:17]
And when they officially put out the announcement, that they were adding Uber to their delivery options for host delivery service customers. It was an, and it wasn't a replacement. It wasn't a change. It was now you can choose between Uber and DoorDash, but they wouldn't say DoorDash. It was very odd. Like something was a little bit, whatever happened feels like a big deal, but I can only speculate.
[00:21:41]
So when I got the official announcement from Uber, from Toast. What happens is I talk to restaurants and I'm like, what is your lived experience, right? Because their lived experience was a lot of them were told that they were being switched against their will to a different provider. And when I asked Toast about it, they just declined to talk about it, which they are wanting to do.
[00:21:59]
But I have to say, I asked them about this and they declined to talk about it, right? So reporting a restaurant's lived experience like, important, legit, reporting that as the final word on a policy or a partnership from a tech company, probably not a good idea because It's not the official word, right?
[00:22:19]
It's not their official release. It's not what they're telling shareholders. It's not what they're telling the public. And, you know, I can, I can speculate and I can guess and I do sometimes in the newsletter speculate and guess and share my opinion and what I think happened. But like, you just you have to make sure that you're checking with everybody that you're writing about everybody that you're writing about.
[00:22:38]
Okay. Saying something about and at least giving them a chance to respond, even if they won't tell you if it's true or not, right? like you have to just give someone a chance to respond to like accusations or an announcement or Like like when the CEO of talk started like lobbing bombs about open table to me on a live podcast recording Like I had to go check with open table and be like, hey, is this true, right?
[00:23:02]
And for a while, they didn't want to talk about it and they're those like we're not commenting but I say Open table declined to comment when I asked about this. Like, it's just little stuff like that.
[00:23:12] Josh Sharkey:
How much time do you have to give? It depends.
[00:23:14] Kristen Hawley:
It depends. So if it's a consequential news story, it can just be a couple hours, right?
[00:23:19]
And like, or an hour. And then the line is, you know, a representative for Dordash did not immediately respond to a request for comment. If it's something that's critical to a story, like the Toast story, Uh, a day, usually. So not a ton of time.
[00:23:33] Kristen Hawley:
No, like, you think about, like, did you read the, this is, I love, I would love to compare myself to this, but I'm not doing the same kind of work.
[00:23:40]
She said, the book about, uh, the Times reporters that broke the Harvey Weinstein story. When they went to his legal team, they gave 24 hours. Uh huh. You know, so like, that's, that's a lot of time and a little time for a story of that magnitude. Yeah. Um, but you, like, you know, a fair amount of time. I need to know this by tomorrow.
[00:23:57]
I need to like, have a response. And that's why these communications professionals are employed, you know, to give you a response in the timeframe that, that you need to have it in.
[00:24:07] Josh Sharkey:
I'm learning so much here about journalism.
[00:24:08] Kristen Hawley:
Oh yeah.
[00:24:10] Josh Sharkey:
Let's talk a little about, about, you know, the past year or so in, in tech and then in some, some forward looking things. I do notice though, by the way, it's, and this is maybe just inherent in, in writing about food tech, is it, it just, there's just way more stories about customer facing tech and me as the, the, the lonely back office tech, there's, we don't really get much, uh, you know, coverage, but I'm assuming that there's just not as much story wise as it relates to sort of, you know, back office or operations tech as there is customer facing tech.
[00:24:43] Kristen Hawley:
I, I mean, fair assumption. I think. There are, there are B2B magazines that cover it more deeply than I do. I've, I've dabbled in more back of the house stuff, but my readership just is generally more interested in front of house things that affect the dining experience. Um, yeah. Sorry? Um,
[00:25:08] Josh Sharkey:
That's all right.
[00:25:10] Kristen Hawley:
You know, but I do, I do try and I do try very hard to creatively work, you know, tech content into, like I did a couple of years ago, I was like my, one of my friends, absolutely not in the industry at all, she's a doctor, was like, Hey, like more restaurants are using toast and I was like, what do you, how do you know?
[00:25:27]
Like, why do you care? And she's like, Oh, I just like notice it because they have this like little logo on the machine. And then the receipt texts you and it says it's from toast. And I was like, Oh yeah. And I did this whole piece about toast inserting itself into consumer branding and what that meant for, you know, formerly faceless restaurant technology.
[00:25:43]
And we've obviously seen what's happened since then. They are very much a consumer brand. It's. Kind of weird, but yeah, I mean, I don't know, like, what, what would an ideal story for you look like? No, look, I think it'd make, it'd make sense.
[00:25:53] Josh Sharkey:
There's just, uh, you know, friends that, of mine that are not in the industry, you know, they'll, they'll ask me more about, you know, about, Me's and I'm like, Oh, is it like Toast?
[00:26:04]
Yeah, but by the way, not just for also, you know, investors and it is, it is what it is. Yeah. I mean, I think it's, I think there's a, you know, it's just, it's just part of the course, I think for, for, for, you know, who, who the audience is. But was there anything that was sort of like most surprising to you in the past?
[00:26:20]
I don't want to say year, but sure. I mean, the last, like, you know, year since we're at the end of the year.
[00:26:24] Kristen Hawley:
Yes. The AMEX acquisition of talk. Okay. Surprised me.
[00:26:28] Josh Sharkey:
How so?
[00:26:29] Kristen Hawley:
And surprised not in like a, whoa, this doesn't make any sense. Like it makes perfect sense. I didn't know that Talk was for sale, so, uh, I got the press release the same time everybody else did.
[00:26:41]
I was in Copenhagen actually reporting a story, and it was a Friday, and it was a Friday night in Copenhagen, and I was like, ugh, like, I'm gonna have to deal with this now. Um, and, uh, and thankfully when I asked Talk CEO Matt Tucker for a comment, he texted me right back. Thank you, Matt. But it was just a surprise in that I didn't usually like you hear about this stuff or you hear rumblings like somebody's in trouble. Someone's shopping around like this was a very well kept secret. So I'm not surprised by the outcome. It makes a lot of sense.
[00:27:13] Josh Sharkey:
Why did they sell it?
[00:27:14] Kristen Hawley:
Well, Squarespace was never like never made actual sense as an owner.
[00:27:18] Josh Sharkey:
Yeah, it's fine. Everybody always thought it was Square that bought it. And that's where it's.
[00:27:22] Kristen Hawley:
Yeah, right.
[00:27:23] Josh Sharkey:
It doesn't make any sense. Like, wait, what? Huh?
[00:27:24] Kristen Hawley:
A brilliant business school case study by Doc, founder, CEO, Nick Cacronis, selling that company for as much as he did during the pandemic after building a, um, a takeout product for restaurants that didn't want to do takeout, like, no, it didn't make sense as an owner.
[00:27:42]
And then when Squarespace was, you know, having some trouble and it. was taken private off the stock exchange. They, it just made sense, I think, to get rid of it, and Amex paid the same amount for it.
[00:27:55] Josh Sharkey:
Yeah, which, yeah, that's a loss there. Were you surprised by the price of Grubhub?
[00:28:02] Kristen Hawley:
Mmm, no, I wasn't. No, that's the thing, like, I don't think I get surprised by, like, that didn't surprise me.
[00:28:11] Josh Sharkey:
Was Blue Apron this year, or was that last year?
[00:28:13] Kristen Hawley:
2023.
[00:28:14] Josh Sharkey:
That surprised me, the price.
[00:28:16] Kristen Hawley:
100, like, high or low?
[00:28:18] Josh Sharkey:
Low. Very low.
[00:28:20] Kristen Hawley:
Uh huh. Uh huh. The Grubhub story, I think, I mean, man, I love a good, I love a good, like, fall story. That sounds terrible. But, you know, there are financial details of that deal, like, that it isn't, it wasn't as big of a hit as it looks like, you know, like, right now.
[00:28:37]
Taking, whatever, 7 million and minus, or 7 billion and minus 650 million, like, whatever. It doesn't matter. No, I was not surprised because GrubHub was for sale for a really long time. Like, basically, 5 months after the acquisition closed, might have been less than 5 months, an activist investor for Just Eat Takeaway was like, you gotta get rid of this.
[00:28:57]
It took a year to close, but pretty much immediately after, they were like, yeah, we do have to get rid of this. Uh, and it, that was, you know, what, three years ago?
[00:29:05] Josh Sharkey:
Was there any, like, interest from DoorDash to?
[00:29:09] Kristen Hawley:
Uh, I imagine there was. I think, um, I don't know if you remember, when GrubHub was first acquired, Uber really wanted it.
[00:29:14]
I think there was some regulatory and antitrust issues and concerns. That it wouldn't have gone through, which is important because the, uh, FTC is changing, obviously under Trump. So, like, maybe a deal like that wouldn't have been blocked then. I don't know. I know it's, I can speculate forever and ever, but yeah, of course they wanted it, I think, but it wasn't necessarily that they.
[00:29:33]
Needed the tech or the restaurants or the creates. It was almost just like wanting to swallow up.
[00:29:38] Josh Sharkey:
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[00:30:45]
Yeah, of course. So, so let's talk a bit about consolidation that, you know, your fingers on the pulse so much. Do you have any sort of speculation around like more consolidation of, of tech that's going to happen? Yeah. I mean, yes,
[00:30:58] Kristen Hawley:
Of course. I think, yes, more consolidation is going to happen.
[00:31:01] Josh Sharkey:
And any particulars that you, that you think, or you would like,
[00:31:04] Kristen Hawley:
Oh, I never predict, um, I think that you're going to see the continuation of what's already happening, which is like point of sale is king.
[00:31:14]
So, like, it's going to be the toasts and all of the other point of sale companies, the squares that are going to be there. Be buying up the smaller pieces of technology in order to offer their customers the most robust tech stack that they can probably bundle into different tiers and charge more money and do all of the things that we've already talked about, but that's I think those are those companies are going to be the big acquirers and then you might see some friction competition between like a toast and a DoorDash third party wanting to be the primary service for a restaurant.
[00:31:46]
By which they run all of their other operations. You know, DoorDash wants to insert itself in every single restaurant order. That's very clear. So, you know, how can they get the most, how can they do that? They just get the biggest share of the tech pie from, from a restaurant. That's perhaps focused more on takeout and delivery.
[00:32:02] Josh Sharkey:
Is there a part of the tech stack that you think is most likely to be consolidated into POS next that might not be? What we expect?
[00:32:11] Kristen Hawley:
I mean, all of it. No, I think like all of it Are you so
[00:32:14] Josh Sharkey:
It doesn't matter. I mean, just that whatever the offerings are that, that a restaurant buys, they'll start to. Buy those up.
[00:32:20] Kristen Hawley:
I think so. I mean, I don't think there's anything that's, I don't know. Do you want me to say like back of house kitchen stuff?
[00:32:27] Josh Sharkey:
It's anything just really, you know, you know, the, to date it's really been things related to the order that they acquire and, and, or to the sale, you know?
[00:32:37] Kristen Hawley:
Right. Because pay, because payments are the, like, that's how Toast makes its money. It makes money on payment. That's how DoorDash makes money. It makes its money on commission. It's less, it's like serving the restaurant is unfortunately secondary in a lot of those transactions. Yeah. But if buying something, some like very robust back of house service will get them more customers to which then they can upsell things that will make them more money. Like, yeah, of course. Why not?
[00:33:00] Josh Sharkey:
You know, one, another question I have is just generally the tech stack from what you're seeing just in terms of like innovations. AI and overall our sort of like new sort of state of the art of where we're at in terms of technology and the adoption curve being where it's at with with restaurants.
[00:33:17] Josh Sharkey:
Do you see any sort of new parts of the tech stack emerging like net new categories?
[00:33:22] Kristen Hawley:
I'm pretty bullish on voice AI across the spectrum.
[00:33:27] Josh Sharkey:
Do you think that will be somewhat commoditized or is are there companies that are just so far that there will be sort of a zero sum to that? Or is that like a eventually become a, you know, something that, that everybody incorporates.
[00:33:43] Kristen Hawley:
I think it's going to be something people incorporate, just because you can see who the leaders are, right? And voice AI, like, startups aren't building their own. AI from scratch. They're, they're using existing AI. Yeah.
[00:33:56] Josh Sharkey:
So I guess what I mean is like, are there enough of the larger players that would actually, that would, would actually build their own or are there like, I don't want to call out a company, but there's a couple obviously that are, they're doing pretty well that would actually just become like the go to provider of, of that tech for everybody.
[00:34:11] Kristen Hawley:
The biggest companies becoming the go to provider is something that has changed in the decade that I've been covering. Like it's less upstarts and less competition and a little bit less exciting and more just like, well, yep, there's the market leader. So is there room, maybe like a better way for me to answer your question is like, is there room for smaller players anymore in this business?
[00:34:33]
And it's like harder and harder to find them. It's harder and harder to find the piece of tech from the, that was built by, you know, the son of a. immigrant who opened a restaurant 30 years ago. You get them. I actually, I did a lovely piece in San Francisco about a local, um, voice AI company that's working with Flour and Water on answering its phones.
[00:34:53]
And it was like a sweet little thing, you know, like they live in the city's flour and water's in the city. They talk to each other all the time. They like made tweaks and changes with each other. And the AI phone system was built because the founder was the son of a restauranteur in the Tenderloin in San Francisco.
[00:35:08]
And, um, yeah, that's it. I wanted a solution for their restaurant. It has become, I say this all the time, it's like less exciting for me as a journalist because I'm covering just like these huge behemoth companies that are public and gated and have layers of communications as I've shared and so like, I want to believe there's a lot of room for innovation and disruption from, you know, an upstart or a smaller player.
[00:35:30]
But. It's, um, we're pretty deeply entrenched now in the restaurants, like having their tech stacks.
[00:35:35] Josh Sharkey:
Yeah, I think it's just a natural order of things. I mean, if you look at, I mean, at a macro level, like Google, Waymo wouldn't be where it is, or, or, you know, if they didn't buy DeepMind, there'd be a very different place.
[00:35:46]
And, you know, you have to have a lot of cashflow A lot of cash to build some of these very step function, you know, innovations in what we do. And it's very hard as a, as a, as a startup to be able to get the amount of, you know, not just market share, but the amount of resources that you need to actually build something that is a step function improvement.
[00:36:04]
And so it almost seems just like a natural order that the larger companies that are throwing off the, you know, the most cash flow will either build or buy something early and innovate on it because they have the cash flow. I don't know if there's anything necessarily wrong with that, um, you know, because you, you know, just, it'll enable you to build things, you know, faster.
[00:36:25] Kristen Hawley:
Yeah.
[00:36:25] Josh Sharkey:
But I, I agree. I think that there's probably less and less of the
[00:36:28] Kristen Hawley:
Oh, yeah. And it's always been like that to some degree, you know, like, DoorDash got a huge, you know, Boost from SoftBank, Vision Fund won like really early, you know, and it's like, it's very clear what kind of founders got that boost at that time, like who else did Vision Fund fund?
[00:36:44]
WeWork, right? So it just, yeah, it does take, I was just talking to the leader of a company who's raised a significant amount of money. I was asking about like, aren't you worried this is risky? You've taken like, you know, tons and tons and tons of money. To build something risky and he was like, yeah, well, we want to build a viable business and this is what it takes and we have to be on that scale.
[00:37:07]
I can't raise 100 million and then, you know, go to 100 billion on the market. So
[00:37:12] Josh Sharkey:
Yeah.
[00:37:13] Kristen Hawley:
Okay. Yeah.
[00:37:14] Josh Sharkey:
And you have to take, you know, big swings and, and, you know, someone like Mark Lohr, you know, like can, can do that because they, I mean, it's pretty incredible to see what he's, you know, what he's doing.
[00:37:24] Kristen Hawley:
That was a good guess.
[00:37:26] Josh Sharkey:
I assumed that you were talking about anyways, but um, I mean, the amount of, you know, the amount of revenues or amount of cash he's raised, first of all, it makes total sense for what he's trying to do.
[00:37:35] Kristen Hawley:
Yeah.
[00:37:36] Josh Sharkey:
And it wouldn't work if you didn't, but not many people can do that.
[00:37:39] Kristen Hawley:
No, no, I, no.
[00:37:42] Josh Sharkey:
Do you have any sort of, like, very contrarian beliefs or predictions about what, you know, what's going on right now that you might not want to share or feel like the most
[00:37:53] Kristen Hawley:
You're asking me if I have anything I don't want to share on your podcast?
[00:37:56] Josh Sharkey:
Well, you're going to share it anyway, so. You know, here's my contrarian thing.
[00:37:58] Kristen Hawley:
I don't mind QR codes. I don't care. I think they're fine. They don't bother me.
[00:38:04] Josh Sharkey:
Why do people hate them? I don't either.
[00:38:05] Kristen Hawley:
I mean, I can tell you why, but you've heard it all before. It's just like, at this point, The restaurant's using a QR code for ordering, there is a damn good reason.
[00:38:13]
Just do it. You know, just do it. I don't, and if you really don't want to, just ask for a paper menu. I have never spoken about one topic more than I have talked about this, and I just never got it. But.
[00:38:25] Josh Sharkey:
Me either. I mean, by the way, I. I feel exactly the same. Like what is the problem with QR code? It's you don't have to build a web app.
[00:38:31] Josh Sharkey:
You can get somebody information quicker. It's right in their phone. They don't do anything
[00:38:35] Kristen Hawley:
Mm hmm. I think the first time I met you in person was over a dinner that had QR code menus in Las Vegas Oh, yeah, that's right. Our dining companion was very upset about it.
[00:38:47] Josh Sharkey:
It doesn't really make any sense to me why why it's an issue, you know, you you read everything on your phone So that I think the only thing I ever heard is well, I want to I want to hold a paper menu Okay It's not a book, alright?
[00:38:57]
It's like, you know, I get like, okay, I want to, you know, I want to read this novel with holding it in my hand. I get that, but like, come on. Also, just the idea that you don't have to wait for things, like the idea for waiting for a server to come back to like order another drink or something. It's like, but there's a lot of use cases for it. I, I would agree with you there.
[00:39:14] Kristen Hawley:
No, maybe it's not so contrarian. I'm happy to give voice to everybody who just doesn't care.
[00:39:19] Josh Sharkey:
No, I think there's, I think there's a lot of people that feel that way. Well, I mean, what are you, what are you most excited about for like going into next year for yourself personally and for the food tech community or sorry, restaurant tech?
[00:39:30] Kristen Hawley:
I'm excited to, to really, to go after the business of restaurants from, like I said, from like this policy and power angle. I think that's really exciting. Um, I think it's really important. I'm excited that things are getting a little spicy again. You know, I'm excited that there is like, you know, that Rezzy and Tak are under the same umbrella.
[00:39:50]
I'm excited that OpenTable is pulling from behind. I mean, not even behind, they've always been the leader, but like, from like a brand standpoint, you know, that they're kind of completely changing the way that they talk about themselves, and they've changed so much of their technology, from what I hear, that it's becoming, you know, like a new product again.
[00:40:07]
It's exciting. Like, things were kind of a little ho hum for a while. I'm excited that Uber's CEO is out there saying that they're going to invest a ton of money in the Uber direct service and they're going to go outside restaurants and they're going to do all kinds of these like logistics plays like I get really excited when there is like conflict and friction and change and like potential.
[00:40:29]
So that's what excites me about the next year of restaurant technology. And I don't want to say I'm excited about the changes that might come. As we inaugurate a new president, I think that it opens the door to more important and critical coverage about how things are going. restaurants grow, how restaurant labor is, how people who work in restaurants are compensated, how hiring and immigration and rights issues and unions and all of the things that are really bubbling up right now.
[00:41:02]
I think it's exciting because it's feels like a moment for change. I'm hopeful about how certain things are going to go, less hopeful about others, but as a journalist, you know, you love to cover those stories and make sure that people understand exactly what's happening so that we can move forward appropriately.
[00:41:19] Josh Sharkey:
Well, it sounds like you have a lot of fuel for
[00:41:22] Kristen Hawley:
Yeah. Things are right about
[00:41:23] Josh Sharkey:
In 2025.
[00:41:24] Kristen Hawley:
I think so. We'll see. Like I'm getting on a plane tomorrow, so I'm sure that some big story is going to come and I'm going to miss it.
[00:41:32] Josh Sharkey:
Well, by the way, I think Expedite is a great holiday gift for anybody. Uh, if you're, can you do that by the way? Can you like gift?
[00:41:40] Kristen Hawley:
Absolutely. There's right on the, right on the subscribe page. There's a funny, actually expedited is on Substack for better or worse. And they had a robust back and forth because they're gifting language was. Was bad on the site and there was a it said for a while like the default was gift gift a expedite subscription There wasn't an an because my newsletter starts with a vowel and I was like, hey guys You're releasing a ton of great features.
[00:42:07]
Like could you just add a vowel or could you just add an N? Before a title that starts with the vowel. Can we change that, please? I think they changed it to gift a subscription to Expedite. But yes, 100%. Expeditenews/subscribe. There's a gift subscription option. Yeah, it, it, it would be, it would be a great gift for the restaurant lover in your life.
[00:42:25] Josh Sharkey:
Well, and the good thing about that kind of gift is if you're running short on time, it's digital. So I love digital gifts because you can do the day before.
[00:42:34] Kristen Hawley:
Oh, yeah. Yes, you can do the day before. I cannot, I have not sophisticated enough, or my platform is not sophisticated enough to schedule the delivery of your gift timed to Christmas or Christmas Eve.
[00:42:43]
Apologies. But, uh, you can still, you can do it.
[00:42:47] Josh Sharkey:
You can definitely do the day before. It just happens.
[00:42:50] Kristen Hawley:
You can do it, you can do it, like, I think that terrible Apple commercial about the, the woman that puts together an AI slideshow of her kids for her husband's birthday. She does it like on his birthday when she forgets his birthday.
[00:43:01]
Oh yeah. It's one of those, it's like in the, um, in the genre of like creativity, killing AI will save you. I'm like, Oh, you forgot a gift. Like here, your phone can make a slideshow of all your pictures and set it to music. And like,
[00:43:13] Josh Sharkey:
I have to say, by the way, the, I've had an iPhone, my since day one at a max since day one, I love Apple. I can't stay in the new photos app. I can't. I can't. I don't know. I don't know how to find my favorites, which is like the one thing you should be able to find, right?
[00:43:31] Kristen Hawley:
It's really bad. It's true. I just felt like I was really old. Like, I just, I was like, Oh, no, am I, am I too old to understand how to use my phone?
[00:43:39]
Like, have we arrived at that? I hope it's just that. And
[00:43:42] Josh Sharkey:
maybe, yeah, we're just like, Okay. I don't know though, man, as a tech
[00:43:45] Kristen Hawley:
writer, like, that would be really bad news for me if I'm suddenly out of touch with how to, like, operate.
[00:43:49] Josh Sharkey:
There's so many things, though, with the new UI that I'm like, who thought, like, did someone consider this? Because it's like the new, like, uh, control screen, like, it doesn't always go to the control, it, like, goes to the second,
[00:44:02] Kristen Hawley:
You know, it
[00:44:02] Josh Sharkey:
goes to like an app and you have to slide it back.
[00:44:05] Kristen Hawley:
Yeah. See, this is a perfect example of how technology decisions made in a vacuum, in this case, like down the peninsula from where I am in San Francisco, affect your life deeply.
[00:44:15] Josh Sharkey:
They need to refactor that photos app back to what it was. I wish we had an option to go back to the original because I literally can't find my favorites. And the, uh, The search thing doesn't work at all. Like it'd be different if like the search, I'm a big search versus file folder kind of person, you know, like, I don't, I search every, all my Google docs, like on my browser, you know, it doesn't work.
[00:44:36]
You know, I can't search like, you know, even if I search like brown dog, my dog, my dog's brown duck doesn't come up every time. So it would be different if the, if the search was so good that you didn't need to organize anything. But it doesn't work that way.
[00:44:48] Kristen Hawley:
I think it wants to get there. Yeah. It's just training us. It's training us to use search and AI functions.
[00:44:54] Josh Sharkey:
That's right. Kristen, thank you for taking some time today and congrats on just continuing to build Expedite. It's really incredible to see. And I was grateful that I got to meet you in Vegas. And I'm sure we will have a dinner again sometime in the future. But until then, I really hope that you have a awesome time flying to New Zealand. And I hope your children sleep the entire way.
[00:45:16] Kristen Hawley:
Yeah.
[00:45:17] Josh Sharkey:
It's going to happen. And if not, that the iPad keeps them busy.
[00:45:20] Kristen Hawley:
Yeah, it'll be great. Well, thank you so much for having me. It's, it is, like I said, strange to be on this side of the interview, but, uh, grateful for a chance to tell, tell the story behind the newsletter that I care so deeply about.
[00:45:31] Josh Sharkey:
Thanks for tuning into The meez podcast. The music from the show is a remix of the song Art Mirror by an old friend, hip hop artist Fresh Daily. For show notes and more, visit getmeez.com/podcast. That's G E T M E E Z dot com forward slash podcast. If you enjoyed the show, I'd love it if you could share it with fellow entrepreneurs and culinary pros, and give us a five star rating wherever you listen to your podcasts.
[00:45:55]
Keep innovating, don't settle, make today a little bit better than yesterday, and remember, it's impossible for us to learn what we think we already know. See you next time.
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