MARIO GOMEZ-HALL: ZEST / DEATH OF THE 1 STAR REVIEW / LYFT TO LUNCH

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a beautiful week for another beautiful episode of the fell in the food podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what?
[SPEAKER_01]: This week, I wanted to talk about where we eat and that dreaded question, where should we go when you're trying to figure out where you want to eat if it's not at your house.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you pull audge foam.
[SPEAKER_01]: Get on yelp, get on Google Reviews, you start checking out what's in your area.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're in an area like me, there's a whole bunch of shit you got to sips through.
[SPEAKER_01]: You finally find a place, but then you see a review from Johnny Foodie 99 and he gave it a two star review and then you just look into it, the way to look at him funny and didn't give him a glass of water when he walked in.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, when we start letting the guy who eats cereal with a fork, you know, tell us what Omakase is.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we have no ideas, people are, but we still let him dictate where we go to eat and what we do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Think about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't follow strangers for movies, music, even cars, you know, why do we do it with the thing that we put into our body and our food choices, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: We've changed our personal tastes for, you know, a muddled noise of algorithms and I'll just a whole bunch of random garbage, you know, we don't need more views, we just don't.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we need more taste makers.
[SPEAKER_01]: People who actually know who have been there and if they swept a card, they know what's good.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's what we're going to do with today's guests.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, he's a tech driven veteran from places like Lifton Square.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he decided to solve that question.
[SPEAKER_01]: Where should we eat bomb once and for all?
[SPEAKER_01]: He's building zest, a platform that replaces the one star angry waiter review with a network.
[SPEAKER_01]: of your actual friends, and my guest today is no other than Mario Gomez Hall of Zes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Enjoy.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to start with this scenario that I think is going to resonate with a lot of people listening.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because it's got to be relatable.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's Friday night.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's been a long week.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're with a friend, maybe a day, your wife, you know, you're you just you're so hungry and you can't wait to go out, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: But then the the dreaded question, the bomb drops, where should we eat, you know what to be?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like Netflix.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like infinite.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, so you pull out your phone, right, you're on Google, Google Maps, Google Reviews, Yelp, you name it, whatever it might be, you're trying to scroll through all the reviews, you're trying to scroll, you're just trying to figure out where you want to, you get it and then you find a place that you kind of like, but then you see like user, you know, one, two, three, Johnny, Johnny loves food.
[SPEAKER_01]: He gave a one star review on the place and you're like, oh, okay, maybe it's not that good, but then you look at it and it's like the
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, come on, man, so that kind of leads us into like Umario and and zest of what you're doing in that space because Again, I've talked to actually somebody about this just recently and how we help and it's just become just a model of shit and and you can't do anything so
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, you're big background in tech.
[SPEAKER_01]: So maybe get 30,000 foot view, you know, because there's a lot to dig into when we have a short amount of time, but kind of you're background and then really how you fell into food with this particular application.
[SPEAKER_00]: Totally.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, I think the problem you're describing is a problem that I weirdly have been extremely like focused on throughout my career.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I would say it's like all about curation, like there's infinite choices out there in the world, especially in the internet,
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, there's like more music being uploaded to Spotify than could ever be listened and more videos to YouTube that could have been watched.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's definitely, you know, not infinite restaurants, but it feels like there because of the way that these platforms, like you open, Google Maps and all that are set up.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think, um,
[SPEAKER_00]: That's kind of like exactly where we are trying to solve for, which is like giving you some signal in that noise and trying to help you make a decision quicker and more deliberately and more personalized, but yeah my whole background of kind of working in tech I my first.
[SPEAKER_00]: job out of college was my first startup which was a music social network and it was really trying to solve that same problem which was you know there's so many songs out there how do you choose what what's important to you we were in college at the time when we started it we found that you know back then people would walk over to your dorm room and just be like listen to the song or they'd be playing it out loud but they're door open but you kind of blues that in that modern era
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we built a product that basically let you share your current song at the moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was called Symbol, like a drum symbol, so I am BAL.
[SPEAKER_00]: And ever since then, I've been pretty obsessed with just kind of like helping people make decisions and curate things better.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then having like those taste makers out there, helping form the other people, would zest what we're building is a way for you to immediately know places around you that you would actually like you personally, not just like people like.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then we show you what the community likes and why, whether it's something that's a hidden gem and it's sort of under the radar or it's the most visited top rated place or it's trending right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we show you where your friends have been and if they want to, they can share what they think about it but it's very simple.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just that thumbs down a thumbs up or a heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we do think your exact point of like a restaurant that you finally made the decision that it looks good and then you see some stupid review from someone you don't know and it took me a while to realize this in my life, but I don't
[SPEAKER_00]: feel the same way about music that most people do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't feel the same way about cars that most people do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't feel the same way about movies that most people do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why do I think that I should follow their recommendations when traveling or when eating?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I really think that that's kind of like the key aha moment for us is like what if you knew every place that your friend had been?
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, without them having to do any work and vice versa.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's really what Zest is because you link your credit card to the app and it finds all the restaurants you've been to automatically.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that friend doesn't have to remember where they went in Mexico City.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that sick place that was like a corner store that also had a, you know, really amazing tacos.
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't need to remember what it was called and like be curating a list.
[SPEAKER_00]: They just went there.
[SPEAKER_00]: They swipe their card and now I see it on on my map.
[SPEAKER_00]: So.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's kind of like the 30,000 foot view of what zest is and then how I fell into food is very much like I was Love food my dad is from Mexico He was a fisheries consulted is a fisheries consulted and everywhere we went in San Diego where I grew up
[SPEAKER_00]: He would either be talking to the kitchen staff in Spanish because they were speaking Spanish and they would tell him whether the food was good and what was going on or he'd be asking about like where the fish came from and was it fresh and he'd be asking all sorts of questions and so food has always been super important to me in that regard and then just like getting to combine technology with that is such a rewarding experience because I feel like I can bring
[SPEAKER_00]: The user experience that I've learned and how to make that better to this world that already cares so much about user experience and hospitality But kind of marrying the two.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but it's not like you're just some just another tech bro.
[SPEAKER_01]: I hate to see it, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: You would hope not.
[SPEAKER_01]: You got lifts on your background.
[SPEAKER_01]: You square right and some other prolific How does that tie-in to how you actually give the user an experience or what did you learn during that time?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah tech that you brought with you
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, I actually think Square is a great example of a company that
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's like, some people, you know, they don't like it.
[SPEAKER_00]: They think, oh, they're taking money out of our pockets or they're in between us.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think the most people would agree that it's basically made it so that more people can start a business and run their business.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it basically democratized that really challenging aspect of getting a relationship with a bank, processing the money, all that stuff that nobody wants to deal with.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was my big learning, working there as a designer,
[SPEAKER_00]: I worked really on the point of sale team so the stuff that you see when you're checking out at a cafe or any sort of quick service restaurant.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then I worked closely with the restaurants team as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I was friends with all those guys and they were going into the restaurants in New York and talking to the people and figuring out what they needed and building table management and you know, receipts and you know, windifiers or certain things.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think what Squarter taught me is just that most people started a business not because they want to be a business man or a business woman, but because they care about the thing that they're providing, they want to put all their energy and craft into that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they actually don't want to do the rest, like the rest sucks, marketing and, and, you know, taxes and payroll and all that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I feel like what I learned there was just how much I could help if I could make that experience the stuff that sucked really easy or automatic and then let them do what they do best.
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you, you know, you talk more about like the human center design versus algorithm.
[SPEAKER_00]: Totally.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it is a challenge.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I would say like, you know, my own, like as a as a creator and a designer, I don't want AI to replace the creative side of the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to replace again the mundane and the the stuff that we don't want to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: What I like about how we use AI and Zest is that it's very informed by you and where you've been.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, when you link a card, we find up to two years of dining history even before you ever even had to app.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, if you went on trips years ago, we can find all those restaurants, do your credit card.
[SPEAKER_00]: and then we put it on a map and we let you browse it however you want.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can filter it down.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can say, oh, places that, you know, that are open now, that are pizza restaurants that I went to multiple times, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And now I can find those places.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you don't want to do that work, AI basically helps to understand who Mario is.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then if you drop me in any city, where should I go?
[SPEAKER_00]: Right?
[SPEAKER_00]: What places are like the places I've been to?
[SPEAKER_00]: And we actually compare them.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we'll be like,
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, this is like my a hello talkerie a place I go to in Oakland, but more upscale with with dining options because that places take out only so it knows in those things about each place in those things about my dining habits and then it suggests places that are like that, but contextualizes them for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, couple questions out of that sort of safety security, you know, if you're linking credit card, you know, there's obviously people that are always worried about, oh my god, it's got my information.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, how do you, how do you debunk that to make sure it's safe?
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and then, too, with kind of the user experience of, I guess this is more personal question because like I got kids and there's certain things that we go out and we eat and it's McDonald or whatever, and it's like, well, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to get dropped into things that I like fast food, but because of the credit card I plugged in, because of the kids.
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you differentiate that?
[SPEAKER_01]: So safety security, and then kind of some of those differenti factors.
[SPEAKER_00]: Totally.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, yeah, you're asking the right questions and deaf one questions that people ask a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would say, I'll start with the second one, which is like the sort of embarrassment filter.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's what we talk about.
[SPEAKER_00]: And like chains.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's funny, one of the things that were the worst at is matching your dining history to the correct location of a chain.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you went to McDonald's in Chicago, we might get the wrong physical location.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we're actually considering just removing chains completely.
[SPEAKER_00]: We already removed them from the social map.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we don't ever show your friends that you went to Chipotle because it's just useless.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, everybody knows what Chipotle is.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one's like, oh, what's Chipotle?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd love to try that place out.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we just hide them from that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then there is this aspect of like some people really like to like kind of life logs everything, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: They want to know where they went on what day.
[SPEAKER_00]: and be like, oh, well, I'm going to McDonald's, you know, 15 times in a year or whatever, more than that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, we're talking about removing that from the private side, but on the public side, we don't show it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then in terms of the first question, the credit card security, that's something that, like, very important to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a very privacy conscious person.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have, you know, Pastor Manager is in
[SPEAKER_00]: I do all the right things by self in my life and I wouldn't use an app that didn't also care about that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we use this company called Plaid, which is the same company that square uses and you know rocket money, all those like budgeting apps.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so they're very secure.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are off offing in through them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we're only reading the food and drinks transactions.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're not looking at your only fans or anything else.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're spending money on we're just looking at food and drink and then you control your own privacy and visibility.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you can make your profile completely private and it just isn't apt at let's you remember where you've been.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you could even follow your friends and they might be like, yo, you should get me access because I'm getting access.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like find my friends, you know, it's like goes two ways.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you can be totally private.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you can choose what you keep.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you can just easily delete that McDonald's visit and it's just gone.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's kind of like up to you is the answer, but we definitely care about, you know, generally like the defaults make it so that you're not going to be embarrassed about your Chick-fil-A have it.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's the determining factor when you're talking about chains because there are some smaller chains, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: They may only have 10, but technically it's a chain.
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you lineage and differentiate like what would actually make that cut?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, totally.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm based in the Bay Area, I'm in Oakland and Iikes sandwiches, one of my favorite sandwich spots.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a little basic, but it's just like so dependable and it's a local chain.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, that's the example we use when we're trying to decide if something's a chain.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we have like a number, which is like maybe like 10 or 15 locations in one city, something like that, where it once it goes past that, it is like kind of a chainy.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I do think it's probably something that's more like we have some editorial control.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're going to try to be very authentic to every city like we're going to try to pay attention to the trends and the interest of that city and try to match it so if, you know, if Waffle House is really big in the south.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even though it's a big chain, maybe people do say this Waffle House is better than that Waffle House go to this one and that's something that we would pay attention to.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it sounds to me similar to almost like a social network, but with food because you're relying on your friends.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're more dependent on it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I went to Italy last year with my first trip.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a buddy who's gone a bazillion times unlike dude.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm in this town.
[SPEAKER_01]: Where do I eat?
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's like, he's like, all right, if you're wanting, you know, just, you know,
[SPEAKER_01]: basic, you know, Italian pizza, but it's not like the craziest thing you've ever had, you go here.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you want this type of food, go here.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you want this, go here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because it's so vast and you're walking around.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was like the perfect recommendations because online it was so hard to determine because almost everywhere I like 4.6 stars and out of 10,000 reviews and you're like, all right, well, out of 100, please, where the hell do I want to eat?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And kind of taking his recommendation and he's like, when you go, you have to get this, this or this.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you're like, all right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Matt, you, you've been here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Which is amazing.
[SPEAKER_00]: By the way, when you don't have to do the thinking and you just trust someone, that's the best thing ever.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like when you get to travel to a new country with someone who's from there and you're just like, all right, I'm on autopilot, you're speaking the language you're taking me around.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's exactly like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, actually, that's a perfect example of someone who that happens to be your friend, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And so you get the benefit.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what if I want that benefit?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I don't know your friend, but I'm going to Rome and I want to know those places.
[SPEAKER_00]: If your friend wants to, he can make any list that he makes public.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I can just find it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when I land in Rome, I'll open zest.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a thing that says popular nearby lists.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it will show me from most popular to least what people have made into lists.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he might have made a list called like Rome Bangers or whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: And like these are his top spots.
[SPEAKER_00]: He can write a note.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're actually we haven't added the note feature yet, but we're testing it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But very soon he'll be able to write a note and say to like get the, you know, Sicilian slice or whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, basically, like, we want to turn those types of people the people who are, you know, list makers who have the Google Maps or the Google Docs or the Apple Notes.
[SPEAKER_00]: We want to turn them into taste makers and let other people benefit from their taste.
[SPEAKER_00]: But generally, if your buddy were on zest and you landed, you would just see where he went.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you would see the places that he either rated highly or went back to.
[SPEAKER_00]: if he thumbs down anything obviously it would be gone and then there's sort of this middle ground where it's like oh he didn't do any like you know kind of curation work but he did go to these places and so it might be valuable info for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah because I was going to say otherwise in the turn it's back into yelp because then you're seeing all the negative stuff and you're like well I don't want to go there possibly even though it got good reviews etc etc it's really just designed on the the positive experiences that people like and then you I guess make that education and you can't guess it's like okay
[SPEAKER_00]: But I did forget to mention that we don't show public reviews at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we only show you your friends reviews.
[SPEAKER_00]: Otherwise, if you don't have any friends who've been there, you won't see any reviews, you'll see the sort of AI synopsis.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it'll say, this is what people suggest ordering.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what people thought overall of the service or the vibe.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are the best dishes.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the kind of explainer of the place.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you'll see like these are similar places or these are places that you've been that are similar But you won't see just like what the crowd thinks, which we do on purpose because we do kind of want to be this like private network and Our long term vision would be that maybe you see friends of friends Not your friends necessarily.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you'll see your friends if they've been there, but you also see where your friend went
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and so you'll be able to basically be like, oh, I trust my friend and therefore I trust their friend.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think Facebook has Facebook has that function, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's where like a friend of a friend can see you right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So he's not like only friends because then nobody can find you if they were trying to find you.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's at least what that six degrees separation where it's like at least there's enough connectivity that you're like, I let me let me take a look at it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you get amazed at how many people, like, if you just link your card, how many places each person has been.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I've been to 894 places I think was the last time I checked.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's across the globe across many cities.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if one person just adds me, then they'll just have tons of stuff to look at.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now imagine you had three, four friends.
[SPEAKER_00]: They each have two to 800 places.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, all of a sudden, you actually have network density in every city.
[SPEAKER_01]: about you guys curated some data right so in 2025 based upon all the aggregate history you guys found here kind of the top dining categories that you found cafes bars Mexican those were the top three and then it goes down into bakeries American fast food pizza ice cream Japanese sushi Italian but why why would you why did cafe bar kind of sit at the top in Mexican
[SPEAKER_00]: I honestly think it's such a it actually really encouraged me when I saw that data because at first I was like, okay, like when you look at it and get it like that is kind of like generic right you're like, okay, yeah, people drink coffee.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what I really think it means is that people like to hang out.
[SPEAKER_00]: And like they they like these third spaces or fourth spaces or whatever you want to call them, but like the idea of a place to meet up with people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, obviously we have a lot of users in New York and in the Bay Area where the people like kind of.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're working in a downtown and then they meet up at a bar or they're getting coffee on their way to work.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think that kind of pushes it a little bit further, but I really think it means that people are like social and they want to be with each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: And those types of places are more beneficial for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the other thing that I learned from that data that I'm working on because I designed the app as well is that I think we need to break out coffee like more like morning and then I think nightlife and then food So I think there's actually like three categories is like food
[SPEAKER_00]: coffee in morning and nightlife.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so coffee in morning is like bakeries, coffee tea, and then nightlife is like bars, you know, late night food, and then there's like just like the core of like lunch and dinner.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, because I think otherwise it does get very biased.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, the coffee space, especially, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because technically, even though Starbucks dunk in our chains, right, people still go, right, some of the good Starbucks have those lounges, those areas where people are going to mingle and meet up and it's like, if you get rid of them, then now I'll have a sudden you've taken out that kind of social piece where maybe it is a good Starbucks.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we all know the menu, we all know the drinks, etc.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: But to your point, well, is this Starbucks better than the Starbucks?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because this
[SPEAKER_01]: And then just to separate it out until like an actual like little mountain cafe out in Colorado when I go out skiing right there's just little Cafe up in the mountain and it's like it's just a cool spot the free says just want to chat with you They want to know where you're from or you local.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean they don't know that pretty quick, but it's just a just a fun hit place to be like I could hang out here for a couple hours and just
[SPEAKER_01]: Do some work chat with people that come in from all over the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, yeah, they're different, but but I liked the general push I think it was the Starbucks CEO recently who was like we need to make our Starbucks more like a place that you'd hang out in like the 90s
[SPEAKER_00]: and like friends, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, you know, they would meet up at a cafe and like, I miss that, you know, I have a espresso machine that I've gotten better and better out over the years and I have friends over on the weekend to like host little kind of breakfast mornings with and it's so fun to just have a reason to gather.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, for sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: Talk to me about the waitlist strategy, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I went to go.
[SPEAKER_01]: I literally got on today and I was like, you know what?
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me check out this.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, wait, I need a code to get in.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, but you're intentional with this.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not a, you know, a, no one can get in.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why the waitlist strategy?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why can't people just access it like any other app?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it's actually funny timing because we're just now removing the weight list like pretty soon.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can make the decision to remove the weight list.
[SPEAKER_00]: Really, what it came down to is, is I think we're all just obsessed with quality.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, you know, like we, we want to make something that's actually useful that actually works that that is interesting and fun and and does something for you because
[SPEAKER_00]: just to be honest, like there's so many apps out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're also gaps.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I don't think anyone's looking for new apps.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not like, oh, browsing the apps are hoping that there's something cool for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think if an app tried us to get into your life today, it has to really do something valuable.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we were trying to build that and we wanted to wait before, you know, we've opened the floodgates.
[SPEAKER_00]: To towards where we had something that we actually felt solved real problems and honestly like there's still more for us to do like we are a small team We're four people and we're building this like every day But I do think that we're getting to a point where you can download this app get a ton of value Have an amazing experience like I love when people text me and they're like
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I went to this place that was a wreck on zest like and it was one of the wrecks that was not from a friend.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was from zest being like Mario, you will like this place And they had an amazing experience and the you know the owner came by and hung out with them and they you know brought them all these great dishes and it was amazing like that's what we want and so Yeah, we were waiting until the product was kind of mature enough to do that
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, so until until the right list is officially gone, I'll happily get a of your listeners a code so that they can get in, um, but pretty soon will be open and they can invite their friends.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there's nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nothing worse than you see a two star and but it's like the hole in the wall place and just it gets too sharp because it looks dungy and has no signage and all this and then you eat the food and it blows your mind because it's the app.
[SPEAKER_01]: because the owners, they're focused on food, not necessarily all the aesthetics and rent and everything else.
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the data that we think we can get with with this that no other platform can.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like the place that you go to and then you go back to, even though it's rated two stars, that should mean by definition, it's not rated two stars on zest, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And we have a different rating system where it's out of 10, so you'll get like a 9.2 or an 8.6 or whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we think that the signal that we get from the credit card spend means that we can actually better categorize places like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as a user, you don't have to remember, okay, let me upload the places I've went to or load everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, all right.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's going to pull it.
[SPEAKER_01]: All I get to is going to give us a thumbs up thumbs down.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's all I really have to do or say or to your point.
[SPEAKER_01]: If one of my buddies is comes to Chicago and says, Hey, where should we eat?
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, here's a quick list.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just shoot them over my, you know, Chicago top.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, quick joints like the portillos, the the pizza places the you just got to go here if you get a chance.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but if you've never been to Chicago, you got it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got to get this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you got to.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, for sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll definitely create a Chicago because there's so much food here that you could you could have a list for everyone for its food.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but the other beauty of it is that you could just send your profile link and anyone Even if they don't have zest, they can just open it in their browser on their phone and they can see every favorite of yours across the entire globe So that's like the idea is that you won't have to make that list if you don't want to Obviously you can and you can put thought into it You can write a nice description you can write little notes for each place But eventually like the idea would just be that you know which friends you trust you tap on their faces You get a great wreck
[SPEAKER_01]: you know how much time that would save me because people do come into town actually had some buddies that were in town um they're in Tennessee now and they came in for the bears game the the playoff game and he's like hey we're staying here where can we eat we we we just need something that's like we don't want upscale we want kind of like just good upscale bar food and I'm just like
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, shit.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now I gotta like go through and look at like what's in that area because I don't remember, you know, all the spots and joints and Cinema, the recommendations that would have saved me so much for Kentucky.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, I'm excited to try it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll definitely suit you code right after this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sorry that it wasn't available immediately.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, that's okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: We only got a few minutes left a couple of quick takes.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's one thing about the future food tech that everyone is currently getting wrong.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hmm.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I think I honestly think delivery, like I know it's not the future of food tech, but it feels like it's the current and therefore we'll continue to be the future, but I really think delivery just messes everything up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, it messes everything up.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, obviously it's a lifeline to a lot of businesses, and I think there's a lot of benefit that these businesses get from it, but I think that the experience that you get from delivery is just such a poor recreation of the restaurant.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and like, you know, by the time it gets there, they're up charging you now to get it quickly versus getting it after they stop somewhere else like they're just adding fees everywhere that they're taking money from and then they're giving you a worse experience and that experience is tied to the restaurants name and that's true right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think like eating is half or you know, it's a part of the experience is not the full experience.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that like you really miss out a lot when you're just like, oh, I just ordered delivery.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think like the laziness, like I mean, we all do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the laziness, it's hurting yourself as well as the restaurant.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, me and my wife talked about that all the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're like, don't order from here because the delivery is terrible by the time you get it home.
[SPEAKER_01]: The packaging that they use, the food gets soggy, whereas you talk to this place and you're like, no, no, they package it right.
[SPEAKER_01]: They put this on the side that on the side.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it doesn't make it a sloppy mess.
[SPEAKER_01]: So get it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they get it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it does determine, even though I made it like the other place better, I'm like, no, no, we're only going to eat there if we're going to basically sit down and eat because I want that food brought out to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I got to consume it right away versus.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we talk about fresh ingredients.
[SPEAKER_00]: We talk about, you know, grind your coffee before you make the espresso or whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then we order food and then it takes 45 to an hour to get here.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not gonna be the same.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, based off the momentum, you know, 2026 is still early on, but what do you think if anything knocks off cafes for the number one spot this coming year?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a great question.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I think we might be putting our finger on the scale because we're probably going to break out cafes into a separate section.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I would say,
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, quick service restaurants are just such a useful thing to have in your life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like to be able to just like go in, not be bothered necessarily by the service and just get what you want and eat it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think like there's just so many concepts like that that are getting better and better and that I would say like it's not really a cuisine but it's a category.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Last one, you have one meal to add to your personal map.
[SPEAKER_01]: Where are you going and who are you eating with?
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh man, I'm obsessed with typhoon and I recently became like such a regular at this Tyrestaurant that the sort of matriarch woman who owns it always comes out and like asking it out my day.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just introduced my girlfriend to her because I had been doing a lot of takeout and and I was like this is Shannon and it was like bringing home my girlfriend to my mom.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that place is a very boring name.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's called delicious tie and it's a college-ath in Oakland, but I would say like if anyone comes out to these bay, that's the best the best tie I've had.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's so good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Got to love it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Got to love some good tie.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, Mario, where is everyone go to check out the app?
[SPEAKER_01]: Check out you and then hit them up with that code just if they want to get in the app early on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, zestmaps.com, like Google Maps, zestmaps, is the best way to get the app.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can also search zestmaps in the app store, and then the code would be just tries zest.
[SPEAKER_00]: T-R-Y-Z-E-S-T, but pretty soon the code will be gone and you could just get in.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, either way.
[SPEAKER_01]: Love it love it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love tech.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love this whole social bubble around this app.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not just another app.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm excited literally.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think as soon as we get off, I'm going to get on and play around with it because I'm I'm really excited to see which of my friends.
[SPEAKER_01]: If they have it or not and then be like, dude, you got to get on this because that's an easy way for us to get out the restaurants to get to get their voice out.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I appreciate your time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Follow me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm Mario and then also I just got to call out the great Anthony board in post right there's notice that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, yes, I can't go around the 14.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, RIP to the main man.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, Mario.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know it was a quick one But that was a lot of information absolutely love it So we'll put all this down in the show notes guys you like this other episode check us out apples butterfly YouTube You know where to find us and until next time.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll catch you on the sunny side