Marco Pierre White’s Eat Club app

Celebrity chef Marco Pierre White needs no introduction.

Starting out a trainee chef in North Yorkshire after leaving school with no qualifications, he arrived in London as a 16 year old to work under Albert Roux and Michel Roux at Le Gavroche,  before becoming head chef and joint owner of Harveys with a kitchen staff that included a young Gordon Ramsay.

At 33, he was the youngest chef to be awarded three Michelin stars

White has worked with everyone, from Gordon Ramsay to Heston Blumenthal (The Fat Duck) to Eric Chavot (The Capital) to Bryn Williams (Odette’s) and Matt Tebbutt (The Foxhunter)

It’s not surprising then that he has teamed up with Matt Cantelo, Ben Tyler and Pan Koutlakis to create a new dining app.

It’s called EatClub and it’s designed specifically for restaurants.

With this app, restaurants will have more control over demand for their tables.

And that will enable them to fill empty seats and of course, that means bigger profits. 

Rather than any of those traditional pre-scheduled deals platforms, EatClub works as a “live” platform.

It’s designed to give restaurants the flexibility to push out deals in real time from the reliable and ever-present smartphone.

Let’s say for example a restaurant is restaurant is experiencing a quiet period.

The EatClub app enables them to push out a 40 per cent off deal for five tables.

And they can set a time when the customers must be in the restaurant.

White said it’s been a long time coming.

“Hotels and airlines have been using dynamic pricing for years – it’s time restaurants had that opportunity,” he told Open House.

Co-founder Pan Koutlakis said the app will draw people back to restaurants.

“Although I was involved in pushing the giant shift towards delivery during my time as Melbourne CEO at foodora, there is something very special about eating out at a great restaurant; the atmosphere, the way we interact with each other and of course fresh delicious food enjoyed straight from the kitchen to your plate,” Koutlakis told Open House.

Melbourne restaurants using the app include +39 Pizzeria, Meatball and Wine Bar, Papa Goose, Babu Ji and Cochin, Machi Japanese, Ben’s Supernatural and Xeom Viet Street Food.

by Leon Gettler, October 9^th 2017

image: Good Food