13 Apr EatStreet prospers eight years after idea was cooked up by UW-Madison students
EatStreet, a Madison tech startup that enables online delivery orders at more than 15,000 restaurants in 250-plus cities nationwide, continues to build on an offer that a restaurant can’t refuse.
“Our pitch is simple,” says CEO Matt Howard. “We drive incremental orders to your restaurant that you would not have if you weren’t listed on EatStreet. We will market you every day and you only pay if we get you an order. Why would you not do this?”
That “what do you have to lose?” sales pitch is little changed since Howard and two fellow UW–Madison students founded the business in 2010. Customers use the EatStreet app or website to order food.
But as EatStreet expanded and outgrew a series of offices, one stumbling block emerged: Delivery. For a restaurant, getting food to its customers – hot and on-time – carries incremental costs of staffing, order timing and bookkeeping.
So in 2017, EatStreet bought a Philadelphia-based delivery service called Zoomer and launched delivery in seven cities, including Madison, Milwaukee and other top EatStreet markets.