Ben Leventhal (Founder & CEO, Blackbird)

We know about restaurants is it's a huge industry. It's trillion dollars in the in The United States. There's thousands and thousands and thousands of restaurants, and people love restaurants. They've spent more and more of their disposable income on restaurants. None of them are making any money. That just can't possibly be the right answer. We, as consumers, are too willing to support restaurants that we love for restaurants to then turn around and report zero profits. And

be strong. Make

any sense.

It's a hard business also.

It's definitely a hard business. It doesn't have to be a hard and broken business. There

we go. It

can be a hard but but solid business.

Welcome back to the Slow Hunch. I'm really excited this week to welcome, to the show Ben Leventhal. Ben is currently the founder and CEO of Blackbird and previously has founded, companies including Resi and Eater. And his Slow Hunch is, several decades old, very interesting, twisty, but also extremely consistent, along the journey of, you know, helping, people enjoy dining and dining, become a better business, for restaurateurs, through generations of media and technology. Really, interesting story and great conversation, and I hope you enjoy it. So maybe you could introduce yourself and, say

So I'm Ben Leventhal. I have been in and around restaurants for more than twenty years. I'm lucky enough to have never operated a restaurant, but I've built companies that are partners of restaurants, Eater, Resi, and now Blackbird. And I would say my slow hunch comes down to the idea that restaurants are not operating as well as they could be. I think generally my slow hunch in life is that the status quo is always wrong. And as it relates to restaurants, that means that the business model that 99.9% of restaurants use is broken. And I've always believed that, and the problem with the status