Restaurant discovery app Zest just killed the “where should we eat?” group-chat debate. On Thursday, the startup launched a personal AI restaurant concierge that lives inside your text messages — and it can find a place everyone likes, put the options to a vote, and book the table without leaving the chat.
Zest restaurant concierge (Credits: TechCrunch)
How Zest’s AI Concierge Works
Users text the concierge at (212) 470-6067 and ask for recommendations by cuisine, craving, occasion, dietary restrictions or neighborhood — even practical questions like how busy a place is, whether it has Wi-Fi, or to pull up the menu. The AI checks availability and makes the reservation through connected services like OpenTable, Resy and SevenRooms.
The killer feature is group chat: drop Zest into a conversation and it blends everyone’s tastes to find places the whole group will love, then settles indecision with an in-thread voting feature before booking for the group.
The Agent Is the Product: Mario Gomez-Hall’s Big Bet
Founder and CEO Mario Gomez-Hall says “The agent is the product now.” Zest’s edge is personalization from day one: the app links to users’ credit cards via Plaid, tracking food-and-drink transactions to learn tastes from where you’ve actually eaten instead of a quiz. Founded in November 2024 with $1.8 million in pre-seed funding from Alexis Ohanian’s 776 and Steve Jang’s Kindred Ventures, Zest is betting that bookings — and eventually food ordering — become its first revenue lines.
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Source: TechCrunch AI — read the full story there.
