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Tech Startup Slice Helps Local Pizzerias Get Online

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Re: Tech Startup Slice Helps Local Pizzerias Get Online

#131

Post by selimthegrim »

avree wrote: post #72
benatkin wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In SF the only pizza place I ate at over a six-month period was owned by jwz, and the only pizza slices I ate were vegan ones. I'm not vegan, but I'm slightly lactose intolerant (or something). I think that pizza is probably a blind spot for many SF/SV startup people. Not surprised this startup is based in NYC. Is there an avocado toast startup? Edit: come to think of it I had vegan pizza in NYC a year and a half ago…

There's plenty of tremendous pizza in San Francisco. Hell, we even have Zante's, which makes quite unique Indian Pizza. The stuff at DNA Lounge is frankly crap compared to some of what you can get from the lesser known places. With that said, we're still nowhere on the level of NYC.

Can confirm. The only thing I remember about DNA Lounge pizza was that it was hot.

Re: Tech Startup Slice Helps Local Pizzerias Get Online

#132

Post by entelechy0 »

jupiter90000 wrote: post #93
JackCh wrote: post #63

Maybe I'm just out of touch, but the appeal of online pizza ordering is something I can't wrap my mind around. Calling and placing an order using the traditional telephone method seems far easier to me. I do it often, more often than I should. Furthermore it seems better for the business since presumably the phone company takes a much smaller cut of the sale than whatever web platform they may be using. Is it because…

Reasons I order pizza online instead of over phone usually: - Online only or other coupons/deals are usually displayed - Entire restaurant menu and other sides can be perused at my leisure and selected - When ordering for multiple people can build a shopping cart of what is wanted by all and verify it's right before confirming order - Phone calls feel rushed to me when I call in, like 'hurry up and order' - I don't g…

Hilariously, I get told a lot that customers have trouble using the online system. Maybe I'm just a young, hip tech geek, but the online system is easy as hell. I love it. Old people suck at computers more often than not, so they are always dependent on a human touch, no matter how frail it is.

Re: Tech Startup Slice Helps Local Pizzerias Get Online

#133

Post by itomato »

rrdharan wrote: post #57
jedberg wrote: post #36

Back about six years ago now, we had a new guy come on board my team at Netflix as an SRE. He had come from Dominoes. He told us stories about how Dominos saw the writing on the wall and reinvented itself as a tech company, how every step in the pizza making process had an API. He showed us command line tools that you could use to order and track your pizza, so you could set it up in cron and then have it tell you wh…

Yes but do they make their own hardware? http://blog.pizzahut.com/dont-miss-a-second-of-march-madness...

"What if we replace the pump with a Dash button?"

"Genius!"

Re: Tech Startup Slice Helps Local Pizzerias Get Online

#134

Post by et-al »

woolvalley wrote: post #121
ahi wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their HQ is actually in Ann Arbor which is nice so long as you don't want big city accoutrements. Pay isn't terrible especially considering cost of living. As far as I can tell their recruiting problem is how many people want to work for pizza corp?

Pay as well as FAGAM and you'll find a lot who would love to get the FAGAM pay while living at Ann Arbor costs.

That's the first time I've seen that variant for "FANG".

Might I suggest GAFMAN to be even more comprehensive? And if Dropbox gets big enough, we can make it DGAFMAN.

Re: Tech Startup Slice Helps Local Pizzerias Get Online

#135

Post by bllguo »

inferiorhuman wrote: post #95
benatkin wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In SF the only pizza place I ate at over a six-month period was owned by jwz, and the only pizza slices I ate were vegan ones. I'm not vegan, but I'm slightly lactose intolerant (or something). I think that pizza is probably a blind spot for many SF/SV startup people. Not surprised this startup is based in NYC. Is there an avocado toast startup? Edit: come to think of it I had vegan pizza in NYC a year and a half ago…

> I think that pizza is probably a blind spot for many SF/SV startup people. Not surprised this startup is based in NYC. Really? I found New York pizza to be pretty mediocre in general (Joe's on Bleecker is pretty good if you're okay with burnt dough). DNA Lounge's pizza is not known to be great though. Out here, Patxi's does a good deep dish vegan pie, and there are plenty of places to get a good New York style slic…

err, surely NY is known for its pizza for a reason. All good if you don't like it, but I don't know how you could be surprised that other people don't share a minority opinion

Re: Tech Startup Slice Helps Local Pizzerias Get Online

#136

Post by Operyl »

JackCh wrote: post #117
nxc18 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) having to talk over the other restaurant staff; receiver can't hear you. 2) reading my credit card number over the phone 3) explaining the details of the order. The human always messes it up. 4) getting surprised by the cost, or having to calculate the cost for all the items ahead of time. I'd rather negotiate my order with a machine in the privacy of my own home than with a person on the phone.

I see. I typically pay with cash, however whenever my trip to an ATM is overdue I pay with credit and they have my number (and delivery address, and typical pizza order) on file, correlated with my phone number. The pizzeria I most frequently order from is a loud bar and I hear the din of the bar noise in the background quite clearly, but I've never had to repeat myself when talking with them over the phone. Often ti…

Which is just as terrifying if someone knows you order from that place .. caller id spoofing is pretty easy and I doubt it’d be hard to convince them to change the address.

Re: Tech Startup Slice Helps Local Pizzerias Get Online

#137

Post by cpeterso »

lambda wrote: post #65
ardit33 wrote: post #4

Fun fact, some of the best "italian" pizzeria's in NYC are actually owned and/or run by Albanians. There is a whole generation of Albanians that moved in Italy (after the 90s), learned the trade there and eventually moved in NYC and opened their places. Fun fact number 2: A lot of greek places in NYC are actually operated by albanians. (for the same reasons as above). The main reason is marketing: People in the US kn…

Pizza is pretty universal these days. There was one pizza place near me in college owned by an Indian family; they also sold Indian food. They didn't appreciate it when we tried to order a chicken tikka pizza, though. Another pizza place near where I used to work was run by an Irish guy, who then later sold it to a Chinese guy. Oh, and my favorite pizza place near where I used to live was run by a Dominican guy. I th…

Zante in the SF Mission District serves Indian pizza:

http://zantepizza.com/

Re: Tech Startup Slice Helps Local Pizzerias Get Online

#138

Post by enraged_camel »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #115
enraged_camel wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Customers tend to be insanely price sensitive when it comes to low-end food such as pizza. So you can’t just raise prices because there is a certain limit to what people will be willing to pay before they decide to get pizza from one of the five other pizzarias on that street.

> Customers tend to be insanely price sensitive when it comes to low-end food such as pizza Then he’s in the wrong market or marketing his product wrong. Lots of cities put a premium on well-made pizza over cheap, “I’m drunk” pizza.

Hmm yes let’s tell someone they are in the wrong market and are doing things wrong when we know literally nothing about their situation. That is not supremely arrogant at all.

Re: Tech Startup Slice Helps Local Pizzerias Get Online

#139

Post by Operyl »

handbanana wrote: post #41
ahallock wrote: post #10

Dominos put more money into their ordering system bells and whistles than the actual food, if you can call it food. I couldn't even finish a slice it was so bad.

It's not great pizza, but it's not as inedible as you and the other commenter claim

I have to wonder if HN has a higher population of “food snobs.”

Re: Tech Startup Slice Helps Local Pizzerias Get Online

#140

Post by et-al »

dfsegoat wrote: post #86
ShabbosGoy wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which will inevitably lead him to use poorer quality ingredients in order to survive. 3-4 POS is ridiculous for a small business. Why hasn’t this been solved yet?

Venturing to guess / IMO: Seems risky for a startup "integrator" (hypothetical company who would solve this) to have their business depend on providing specific integrations per startup + POS system. You would need to keep tabs on any changes ea. of the companies like Slice, GrubHub etc. made from both a service standpoint, and a hardware standpoint, right? To top it off, it would just be one more layer ontop of this…

I worked in the restaurant POS space until very recently.

We (and our competitors) are partnering up with Grubhub, Eat24, etc. to solve the hassle of multiple tablets at the counter. Orders can just flow seamlessly from Grubhub's web site / app to our software (which the restaurant already uses), and the restaurant staff just has to confirm the order.

Unfortunately the margins all pretty thin, and ultimately you try to make money off payment processing.

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