You mention cities in the south. Are you going to adjust the recipe to southern taste?
Launch HN: MAC'D (YC S18) – Fast-Casual, Build-Your-own Mac and Cheese
31–40 of 42 posts
Re: Launch HN: MAC'D (YC S18) – Fast-Casual, Build-Your-own Mac and Cheese
#32First off, kudos on launching multiple successful restaurants in a tough city like SF! > Our technology differentiation is taking advantage of the growth What does this actually mean? Reading between the lines, sounds like you're going for a standard cloud kitchen model. Besides nicer packaging for delivery, seems like you'll be operating a regular kitchen that does take out. Some platforms like Uber supply restauran…
As we scale, things like monitoring operations and rolling out changes quickly (new recipes, modes of preparation, etc) become difficult. Expanding will help us see bigger gaps in our own processes, and that's where we believe that tech can come in and make operations more visible and smooth. At least, that's what I'm excited about :)
I wondered why Peet's Coffee (200+ locations worldwide) still uses paper checklists to ensure employees are following procedures, and it may have remained archaic because it's physical and familiar. But that's not the direction we want to go.
Re: Launch HN: MAC'D (YC S18) – Fast-Casual, Build-Your-own Mac and Cheese
#33Hi Chen-Chen and Antony, Why did you choose to join YC with a restaurant business? Is there a technology differentiator in your business? I have a lot of experience in the on-demand food space and your method of using commissary kitchens is very smart and will allow you to access tens of thousands of customers without an expensive build out. I would guess net (after paying the delivery platforms for distribution) you…
Great questions. We believe that YC builds companies that are lean, scale efficiently, and build products that people want. We felt like we had a product that people wanted, and wanted a bit more guidance on how to grow. Our technology differentiation is taking advantage of the growth of delivery platforms to scale our business via commissary kitchens. We've talked briefly about expanding to other concepts once we've…
You intend to penetrate the market outside of SF with commisary kitchens? That's interesting. How do you intend on tackling employee management/training and food distribution quality though?
Also nice site.
Re: Launch HN: MAC'D (YC S18) – Fast-Casual, Build-Your-own Mac and Cheese
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
We can't wait to be in markets removed from the economics of SF! San Francisco has the highest costs of running a restaurant (labor, rent, food) and consequently, hurts our margins. In other areas removed from social drivers, we'll spend less time on our viral social media presence and more on grassroots marketing and community engagement. It's our thought that if we can make it (twice) in SF, we can make it in other…
In these other areas, will you pay your employees a living wage?
Absolutely - we've always paid a premium for our employees, even in SF, and we will continue to do so!
Re: Launch HN: MAC'D (YC S18) – Fast-Casual, Build-Your-own Mac and Cheese
#35Will the prices of your product be flat across the nation or will that be dependent on location? Curious to see how hard it is to manage quality of food across the states. Interesting concept, best of luck!
Definitely will be dependent on location. e.g. our Portland prices are (very) slightly cheaper than our SF prices.
Re: Launch HN: MAC'D (YC S18) – Fast-Casual, Build-Your-own Mac and Cheese
#36We used to get Homeroom catered to our company so I'm pretty familiar. Its pretty delicious but also really heavy. I noticed that it was difficult finding something that I'd want to eat on a recurring basis, and that must have been uniform because we stopped getting catering from them after 6 months or so. I'm curious to know if you've seen recurring business from customers or just getting new business because its a…
Your point about trends in healthier eating is a great one and something we're cognizant of. We're partnering with some awesome vegan food vendors in the next weeks to come, and we've had talks about other menu items that are complementary to Mac n Cheese, as well as having smaller portions.
Like most restaurants with new concepts, we need to draw a line between catering to everyone and sticking to our brand. Out of the above ideas, we'd want to experiment with smaller portions. But we'd like to continue getting feedback on our current concept before making these changes.
Re: Launch HN: MAC'D (YC S18) – Fast-Casual, Build-Your-own Mac and Cheese
#37Is this a joke?
Re: Launch HN: MAC'D (YC S18) – Fast-Casual, Build-Your-own Mac and Cheese
#38I’m assuming a giant bowl of pasta and cheese is incredibly unhealthy, even with some brocolli sprinkled on top. Do you have any moral concerns with this company? We’re a massively obese nation...
Yeah honestly it sounds pretty gross. But I’m sure there are a lot of people out there that want to eat very un healthy food. I mean, look how many McDonald’s there are in the world. Personally I would never start a company whose sole mission is to feed people things that are definitely bad for them, and I’m surprised that this is the product they chose to launch with when there are SO many easy and cheap ways to get unhealthy food already. Uber eats will deliver me McDonald’s for free in under 20 mins, plus Taco Bell, jack in the box etc etc. It seems like a huge opportunity to bring that kind of convenience and cost effectiveness to healthy food. Almost everything healthy near me is 2-5x more expensive. But if someone could figure out how to make delicious healthy food at scale and deliver it to me, wow. I would be so stoked. So I hope these founders will consider thinking about more than a bottom line as they scale up. The world doesn’t need more Mac n cheese.
Re: Launch HN: MAC'D (YC S18) – Fast-Casual, Build-Your-own Mac and Cheese
#39A fascinating exposure to alien food.
Where does this idea of "mac and cheese" as a specialty come from? Who's going to find this stuff "nostalgic" and "familiar in taste"? Wouldn't your restaurant be equally "fast-casual" and more interesting and high quality with a traditional curated menu of good pasta recipes instead of build-your-own cheese and "anything"?
Re: Launch HN: MAC'D (YC S18) – Fast-Casual, Build-Your-own Mac and Cheese
#40I’m assuming a giant bowl of pasta and cheese is incredibly unhealthy, even with some brocolli sprinkled on top. Do you have any moral concerns with this company? We’re a massively obese nation...
There's a quote attributed to Redd Foxx that I read years ago in, of all places, a bodybuilding magazine I subscribed to. "One of these days, all those healthy people are going to end up dying of nothing."
How about we just let people make their own informed choices? I love mac & cheese and would happily use this service if I were in their target area. I also made my family sauteed broccoli and rice for dinner last night. Although you might complain about the freshly baked peach pie and vanilla ice cream I made for dessert!
Not everything needs to be a hand-wringing concern about the future of civilization; sometimes we just need to enjoy ourselves.