Taking our Restaurant Roundtable on the Road – Next Stop: Philadelphia

Last month we held our first roundtable in New York City to hear feedback and learn from the local restaurant community. Among the attendees were local restaurants and representatives from the NY State Restaurant Association and City Council who made the session a constructive conversation, sharing ideas about how we can best help our restaurants grow and succeed in today’s evolving restaurant environment. 

Last week we took this experience to another thriving restaurant market: Philadelphia. Yet again we were welcomed with an informative discussion on how we can improve our platform to best serve you, our restaurant partners, ultimately helping you to best serve your diners. We were inspired by listening to our restaurants in attendance share stories of success, difficult times, and even their go-to secrets of the trade. 

As we dove into our capabilities and demoed our insights dashboard, it was clear our partners had a variety of needs to benefit their business the most. One partner said, “The ‘menu updates’ functionality is great! It’s very easy to use and the easiest to read for back-of-house,“ leading his cooks to make fewer mistakes with Grubhub. But we do have some constructive feedback to address and incorporate, so we’re looking forward to making headway as we continue improving our capabilities. 

Key Insights and Takeaways

Many of the same topics covered in NYC were discussed during this roundtable, and a few new ones came to light with our partners in Philly:

• In sharing more details about our Dashboard, we heard appreciation for – but also a need for more – self-serve features. Every restaurant’s needs are different, and that came across throughout the day. Our product team is continuously evolving our platform to better serve your needs so that you can update your account how you want and when you need it. 
• While some features exist, the functionality may not always be obvious. We need to expand our efforts in educating and showing you how to get the most out of our restaurant tools. Whether it’s the ability to add custom restaurant hours to plan your week or adding a spot-promotion on a rainy day to drive sales, we want to make sure you know these products exist and that it’s clear how to use them. 
• You mentioned the need for added account management. Questions and concerns come up that can’t always be solved with a self-serve platform – we get that! We take this seriously and look forward to exploring further with our team. 
• We dove into virtual restaurants, and we could see it piqued interest. Some restaurants in the room have already begun exploring, with others already executing on new concepts. This is something our team can help you execute, and we’ll be sure to take this into account for others that might be interested as well. One restaurateur even expressed his excitement for the potential opportunities of another restaurateur in the room: “I’m jealous you have such a broad menu; you can do anything with a virtual restaurant!” 

Our Next Steps

The information and constructive feedback we heard last week was invaluable. Those in attendance expressed their appreciation for this level of engagement and having their voices heard.This appreciation was mutual for allowing us to have an open and honest conversation. 

We have work to do, and will continue to look to you for your feedback – the road doesn’t end here. We’re excited to continue the conversation through these roundtables, and we’re already planning the next one in this series. 

Our mission has always been to connect hungry diners with great restaurants like yours, driving more orders and additional revenue to your bottom line. Stay tuned for more information on our future roundtables, as the next market could be yours and we’d love to include you. We thank you for your partnership and are excited to continue enhancing our platform to help you put your best foot forward!