Ben Leventhal would relatively let you know the place to take a seat at a restaurant than what to order. “If you go to Balthazar, sit on table 62,” he says, sipping his tequila. “It’s on the left side of the room and you’ll get the best views.”
During the last 20 years, the forty-something New Yorker has been instrumental to the rise of foodie tradition. First, he advised us the place to eat, launching information web site Eater in 2005—since acquired by Vox Media. Then, he helped us to order tables, co-founding Resy in 2014, which catalyzed “reservation culture,” by funneling the supply of greater than 16,000 eating places into one app. At the moment, he’s immersed in his newest restaurant tech enterprise: Blackbird Labs, a shared loyalty program for eateries, the place diners obtain factors within the type of crypto tokens.
For Leventhal, the brand new enterprise is about greater than discovering a brand new approach to mix know-how and delicacies. At a time when many small eating places face existential threats to their enterprise mannequin, he hopes Blackbird can present them with a brand new stage of financial savvy—and in doing so, maintain alive the kind of venues he describes as his “happy place.”
Eating out takes off, but eating places are in decline
On a somber August afternoon in Manhattan, Leventhal is aware of simply the place to flee the showers darkening town: NoHo’s darkish and stylish Temple Bar the place menus and faces are learn by candlelight, irrespective of the hour or season. With mahogany partitions, a checkerboard ground, and pay cellphone, the 90s decor pays homage to the last decade when the restaurant first gained notoriety—an period when the artwork world would flock inside to drink martinis out of its signature, outsized glasses.
We’re at Temple Bar since it’s one among Blackbird’s early patrons, but in addition as a result of it displays his fascination with the spectacle of eating. “It’s actually not really about the food,” he admits, earlier than gesturing to Andy Warhol’s disco ball within the nook, speculating on the story behind it. “Seeing restaurants do what they do well—I get really excited,” he says.
However whilst iconic spots like Temple Bar keep their mystique, Leventhal additionally is aware of a tough fact: revenue margins of eating places have been in regular decline. Meals prices maintain climbing, labor shortages persist post-pandemic, and lease has soared.
Regardless of this, the variety of new restaurant listings on Yelp hit an all-time excessive final 12 months. And in June, New York legislators even handed a invoice banning reservation markets, the place Resy bookings have been promoting for as much as $1,000. “They’re more popular now—that’s what’s curious about it,” he says.
Given all this, Leventhal believes the eating places he loves have a preventing probability if they will determine how to make more cash from clients strolling by means of their door—particularly the common ones.
Eat-to-earn crypto tokens
In tech and crypto jargon, Blackbird is a decentralized eat-to-earn app. In sensible phrases, which means customers who frequent eating places that use Blackbird earn what the app calls “$FLY points.” One other approach to think about it’s as an old-school loyalty rewards program constructed on new-fangled blockchain know-how.
Transactions involving FLY are stamped onto a spin-off blockchain (a “Layer 2” in crypto converse) referred to as Base that was constructed by crypto big Coinbase with the objective of lowering the stiff transaction prices that may come from utilizing the first Ethereum blockchain.
Diners care no extra in regards to the nature of Blackbird’s blockchain than they do in regards to the wires transmitting their Visa funds. However most will care in regards to the perks they will obtain from accumulating FLY factors reminiscent of complimentary dishes, welcome drinks and last-minute tables.
Vance Spencer, co-founder of enterprise capital agency Framework Ventures, advised Fortune that he makes use of the app on a regular basis, as his favourite breakfast spot simply so occurred to be on the community. The perks? He’s not paid for espresso in six months. As of July, customers have additionally been capable of pay the examine in-app with FLY, through the funds community, Blackbird Pay.
Blackbird builds upon what Leventhal has learnt about eating tradition all through his profession. That’s, in cities like NYC, exclusivity is on the market. For instance, a buyer is extra inclined to guide a desk if they will see it’s the final one, or a spot on the waitlist opens up on the ultimate hour. Noticing this, Resy commodified the reservation itself: it “becomes the main event,” the corporate wrote in a latest weblog submit.
Within the case of Temple Bar, the historic venue’s embrace of blockchain is undetectable to the bare eye. However, there’s one merchandise, devoid of 90s allure, that provides it away: The so-called “check-in” level. Blackbirders scan what seems to be a steel hockey puck upon arrival, and to open a brand new examine. The blockchain data the place they ate, how they ordered, and what they spent, to estimate their lifetime worth. Companies, which pay $89 month to make use of Blackbird, can then spot when it’s price providing a free drink or one of the best desk. “If you do that repeatedly, then you’re on the path to economic viability,” Leventhal says.
The trail to adoption
Blackbird’s thesis is compelling, particularly when laid out by the charismatic and hyper-rational Leventhal. However on the frontlines of the eating places it’s designed to save lots of, the service is a piece in progress. Moments earlier than his arrival at Temple Bar, his publicist asks the server for “the puck”—solely to obtain a glance of bemusement in response.
“If I see the Blackbird device at a restaurant, I try to strike up a conversation about the app with the hosts or maître d’,” one person advised Fortune, on the situation of anonymity as a result of working in crypto. “But they usually have little to say about it.”
Even when restaurant workers seem perplexed or detached to the app, it seems to be getting traction amongst a extra important constituency: diners. In keeping with a Blackbird spokesperson, adoption has elevated 10-fold in the course of the year-or-so it’s been stay and its roster now contains about 0.6% of town’s eating places.
Nonetheless, if Blackbird goes to induce clients to make use of it, a sure threshold of companies should be a part of, with a view to incentivize downloads. “I haven’t really benefited yet as a casual user,” the shopper added.
When requested in regards to the adoption curve, Leventhal acknowledged there’s a threshold to spark virality. Whereas he didn’t disclose the place that tipping level might lie, it’s “lower than people think,” he insists. “In the meantime, trust us to curate great restaurants.”
The duty of persuading eating places and customers to enroll will seemingly be smoother provided that Leventhal seems clear-eyed in regards to the attraction of crypto—or lack of it—for the common diner. He acknowledges that blockchain is unlikely to be a promoting level for the fits in Le Bernardin, or the It Women at Clandestinos.
“That would not be a sell that works,” he says. And for the end-user, the crypto aspect isn’t noticeable. “Crypto people are just obsessed with putting the word ‘crypto’ before things,” he says.
Maintaining worth within the business
Leventhal by no means got down to develop into a crypto founder. Earlier than Blackbird, he was merely a “curious observer” of the business. Reasonably, in the course of the early days of the pandemic, in a dialog with enterprise capitalist Fred Wilson, associate of Union Sq. Ventures, he articulated a nebulous concept about making a common forex between eating places. Crypto was solely talked about later, because the know-how that made probably the most sense to convey it to life. Certainly, the blockchain element is what permits eating places to share buyer knowledge and commerce a single forex.
Ostensibly, Blackbird is a loyalty program, however at its core is Leventhal’s imaginative and prescient for a shared, rising pool of capital—FLY’s market cap—that’s saved throughout the hospitality business. Theoretically, this implies a person can earn FLY by consuming at one restaurant, however then deploying it one other, the place they by no means spend a dime.
“Restaurants should prefer that customers spend their money on other restaurants, rather than on hotels or a first class plane ticket. That way, it’s keeping value in the industry,” he says. Certainly, FLY can not but be traded between customers, on exchanges, or used for off-app purchases, nor has Blackbird introduced plans to take action.
Within the bruising enterprise of hospitality, Leventhal is daring eating places to like thy neighbor. If he pulls it off, date nights and birthday dinners might quickly be settled with FLY.
