Hospitalitychain.com, the world's first online hub designed for the hospitality, culinary, and catering industry. From leading food and beverage brands to professional food service equipment, hospitalitychain.com makes sourcing simple. Search, select, buy direct, and save all in one global marketplace. It's a beautiful week for another beautiful episode of the Fell into Food podcast. You know what? This week, I wanted to talk about where we eat in that dreaded question. Where should we go when you're trying to figure out where you want to eat if it's not at your house? You know, you pull out your phone. Get on Yelp. Get on Google Reviews. You start checking out what's in your area. If you're in an area like me, there's a whole bunch of shit you got to sift through. You finally find a place. but then you see a review from johnny foodie 99 and he gave it a two-star review and then you look into it the waiter looked at him funny and didn't didn't give him a a glass of water when he walked in you know when when do we start letting uh the guy who eats cereal with a fork you know tell us what omakase is you know we have no idea who these people are but we still let him dictate where we go to eat and what we do. Think about it, right? We don't follow strangers for movies, music, even cars. So why do we do it with the thing that we put into our body and our food choices, right? We've changed our personal tastes for, you know, a muddled noise of algorithms and just a whole bunch of random garbage. You know, we don't need more reviews. We just don't. You know what we need? More tastemakers. People who actually know who have been there. And if they've swiped a card, they know what's good. So that's what we're going to do with today's guest. You know, he's a tech-driven veteran from places like Lyft and Square. And then he decided to solve that question, where should we eat bomb once and for all. He's building Zest, a platform that replaces the one-star angry way to review with a network of your actual friends. And my guest today is no other than Mario Gomez Hall of Zess. Enjoy. I want to start with this scenario that I think is going to resonate with a lot of people listening, okay? Because it's got to be relatable. It's Friday night. It's been a long week. You're with a friend, maybe a date, your wife. you know you're you just you're so hungry and you can't wait to go out right yeah uh but then the the the dreaded question the bomb drops where should we eat you know what i mean it's like netflix it's like infinite right so you pull out your phone right you're on google google maps google reviews yelp you name it whatever it might be you're you're you're trying to scroll through all the reviews you're trying to scroll you're just trying to figure out where you want to you get it and then you find a place that you kind of like but then you see like user you know one two three Johnny Johnny loves food uh he gave a one-star review on the place and you're like oh okay maybe it's not that good but then you look at it and it's like the waiter looked at me all funny dude it's always the worst reason yeah and it's like come on man so that kind of leads us into like you Mario and and zest and what you're doing in that space because again I I've talked to actually somebody about this just recently and how Yelp and it's just become just a muddle of shit and you can't do anything. So, you know, you're big background in tech. So maybe give 30,000 foot view, you know, because there's a lot to dig into and we have a short amount of time, but kind of your background and then really how you fell into food with this particular application. Totally. Yeah, I mean, I think the problem you're describing is a problem that I weirdly have been extremely, like, focused on throughout my career. And I would say it's, like, all about curation. Like, there's infinite choices out there in the world, especially in the internet world that we're at where you know there's like more music being uploaded to spotify than could ever be listened and more videos to youtube that could ever be watched and there's definitely you know not infinite restaurants but it feels like there are because of the way that these platforms like yelp and google maps and all that are set up and so i think um that's kind of like exactly where we are trying to solve for which is like giving you some signal in that noise and trying to help you make a decision quicker and more deliberately and more personalized. But yeah, my whole background of kind of working in tech, my first job out of college was my first startup, which was a music social network. And it was really trying to solve that same problem, which was, you know, there's so many songs out there. How do you choose what's important to you? We were in college at the time when we started it. And we found that, you know, back then people would walk over to your dorm room and just be like, listen to the song or they'd be playing it out loud with their door open. But you kind of blues that in that modern era. And so we built a product that basically let you share your current song of the moment. It was called Symbol, like a drum symbol, C-Y-M-B-A-L. And ever since then, I've been pretty obsessed with just kind of like helping people make decisions and curate things better. And then having like those tastemakers out there help inform the other people. With Zest, what we're building is a way for you to immediately know places around you that you would actually like, you personally, not just like people like. Then we show you what the community likes and why, whether it's something that's a hidden gem and it's sort of under the radar or it's the most visited, top rated place or it's trending right now. And then we show you where your friends have been. And if they want to, they can share what they think about it. But it's very simple. It's just a thumbs down, a thumbs up or a heart. Um, but we do think your exact point of like a restaurant that you, you finally made the decision that it looks good. And then you see some stupid review from someone you don't know. And, uh, it took me a while to realize this in my life, but I don't feel the same way about music that most people do. I don't feel the same way about cars that most people do. I don't feel the same way about movies that most people do. Why do I think that I should follow their recommendations when traveling or when eating? And I really think that that's kind of like the key aha moment for us is like, what if you knew every place that your friend had been without them having to do any work and vice versa? And that's really what Zest is because you link your credit card to the app and it finds all the restaurants you've been to automatically. So that friend doesn't have to remember where they went in Mexico City. Oh, that sick place that was like a corner store that also had a, you know, really amazing tacos. They don't need to remember what it was called and like be curating a list. They just went there, they swiped their card, and now I see it on my map. So, yeah, that's kind of like the 30,000-foot view of what Zest is. And then how I fell into food is very much like I always love food. My dad is from Mexico. He was a fisheries consultant, is a fisheries consultant. And everywhere we went in San Diego where I grew up, he would either be talking to the kitchen staff in Spanish because they were speaking Spanish, and they would tell him whether the food was good and what was going on, or he'd be asking about like where the fish came from and was it fresh and he'd be asking all sorts of questions and so food has always been super important to me in that regard um and then just like getting to combine technology with that is such a rewarding experience because i feel like i can bring the user experience that i've learned and how to make that better to this world that already cares so much about user experience and hospitality um but kind of marrying the two yeah But it's not like you're just another tech bro. I hate to say it, right? No, I would hope not. You got Lyft on your background. You, Square, right? And some other prolific. How does that tie into how you actually give the user an experience Or what did you learn during that time of that piece of tech that you brought with you Yeah I mean I actually think Square is a great example of a company that I think it like some people you know they don like it They think, oh, they're taking money out of our pockets or they're in between us. But I think most people would agree that it's basically made it so that more people can start a business or run their business. and it basically democratized that really challenging aspect of getting a relationship with a bank processing the money all that stuff that nobody wants to deal with and that was my big learning working there as a designer i worked really on the point of sale team so the stuff that you see when you're checking out at a cafe or any sort of quick service restaurant um but then i worked closely with the restaurants team as well so i was friends with all those guys and they were going into the restaurants in new york and talking to the people and figuring out what they needed and building table management and, you know, receipts and, you know, when to fire certain things. And so I think what Square taught me is just that most people start a business, not because they want to be a businessman or a businesswoman, but because they care about the thing that they're providing. They want to put all their energy and craft into that. And they actually don't want to do the rest. Like the rest sucks. Marketing and, you know, taxes and payroll and all that sucks, right? And so I feel like what I learned there was just how much I could help if I could make that experience, the stuff that sucked, really easy or automatic and then let them do what they do best. How do you how do you you know, you talk more about like the human centered design versus algorithm. OK, it's tech, so it's got to have some of that that integration and A.I. is part of it. But how do you find that happy medium when you're designing this app? Totally. Yeah, it is a challenge. And I would say like, you know, my own like as a creator and a designer, I don't want AI to replace the creative side of the world. I want to replace, again, the mundane and the stuff that we don't want to do. What I like about how we use AI and Zest is that it's very informed by you and where you've been. So when you link a card, we find up to two years of dining history, even before you ever even had the app. So if you went on trips years ago, we can find all those restaurants via your credit card. And then we put it on a map and we let you browse it however you want. You can filter it down. You can say, oh, places that, you know, that are open now that are pizza restaurants that I went to multiple times. Right. And now I can find those places. But if you don't want to do that work, AI basically helps to understand who Mario is. And then if you drop me in any city, where should I go? Right. What places are like the places I've been to? And we actually compare them. So we'll be like, you know, this is like Maya Halal Taqueria, a place I go to in Oakland, but more upscale with with dine in options because that place is takeout only. So it knows it knows things about each place and those things about my dining habits. And then it suggests places that are like that, but contextualizes them for me. A couple of questions out of that safety, security. You know, if you're linking credit cards, you know, there's obviously people that are always worried about, oh, my God, it's got my information. How do you debunk that to make sure it's safe? And then two, with kind of the user experience of, I guess this is more a personal question because like I got kids and there's certain things that we go out and we eat and it's McDonald's or whatever. And it's like, well, I don't want to get dropped in and it thinks that I like fast food, but because of the credit card I plugged in, you know, because of the kids, how do you differentiate that? So safety, security, and then kind of some of those differentiating factors. Totally. I mean, yeah, you're asking the right questions and definitely questions that people ask a lot. I would say I'll start with the second one, which is like the sort of embarrassment filter is what we talk about and like chains. It's funny. One of the things that we're the worst at is matching your dining history to the correct location of a chain. So if you went to a McDonald's in Chicago, we might get the wrong physical location. And so we're actually considering just removing chains completely. We already removed them from the social map. So we don't ever show your friends that you went to Chipotle because it's just useless. Like everybody knows what Chipotle is. No one's like, oh, what's Chipotle? I'd love to try that place out. So we just hide them from that. But then there is this aspect of like some people really like to like kind of life log everything. Right. They want to know where they went on what day and and be like, oh, wow, I'm going to McDonald's, you know, 15 times in a year or whatever. More than that. so yeah we're talking about removing that from the private side but on the public side we don't show it and then in terms of the first question the credit card security that's something that like very important to me I'm a very privacy conscious person I have you know password managers and I do all the right things myself in my life and I wouldn't use an app that didn't also care about that so we use this company called Plaid which is the same company that Square uses and you know Rocket Money, all those like budgeting apps. And so they're very secure. You are offing in through them. And then we're only reading the food and drink transactions. So we're not looking at your OnlyFans or anything else you're spending money on. We're just looking at food and drink. And then you control your own privacy and visibility. So you can make your profile completely private. And it just is an app that lets you remember where you've been. And you could even follow your friends and they might be like, yo, you should give me access because I'm getting access. It's like find my friends, you know, it's like goes two ways. But you can be totally private. And then you can choose what you keep. So you can just easily delete that McDonald's visit and it's just gone. So it's kind of like up to you is the answer. But we definitely care about, you know, generally, like the defaults make it so that you're not going to be embarrassed about your Chick-fil-A habit. And then, you know, we're not going to be looking at anything other than food and drink. what's the determining factor when you're talking about chains because there are some smaller chains right they may only have 10 but technically it's a chain how do you lineage and differentiate like what would actually make that cut yeah totally yeah i'm based in the bay area i'm in oakland and uh ike's sandwiches is one of my favorite sandwich spots it's a little basic but it's just like so dependable and it's a local chain and yeah that's that's the example we use when we're trying to decide um if something's a chain i think we have like a a number um which is like maybe like 10 or 15 locations in one city something like that um where once it goes past that it is like kind of chainy um but i do think it's probably something that's more like uh we were we we have some editorial control um and and we're gonna try to be very authentic to every city like we're gonna try to pay attention to the trends and the interests of that city and try to match it. So if, you know, if Waffle House is really big in the south, even though it's a big chain, maybe people do say this Waffle House is better than that Waffle House. Go to this one. And that's something that we would pay attention to. So it sounds to me similar to almost like a social network, but with food because you're relying on your friends. You're more dependable. I went to Italy last year. It was my first trip. I have a buddy who's gone a bazillion times. I'm like, dude, I'm in this town. Where do I eat? And he's like, all right, if you're wanting just basic Italian pizza, but it's not like the craziest thing you've ever had, go here. And if you want this type of food, go here. And if you want this, go here because it's so vast and you're walking around. And it was like the perfect recommendations because online it was so hard to determine because almost everywhere got like 4.6 stars. and out of 10,000 reviews and you're like, all right, well, out of a hundred places, where the hell do I want to eat? Um, and kind of taking his recommendation. He's like, when you go, you have to get this, this, or this. And you're like, all right, man, you've been here. Which is amazing by the way, when you don't have to do the thinking and you just trust someone, that the best thing ever It like when you get to travel to a new country with someone who from there and you just like all right I on autopilot You speaking the language You taking me around It exactly like that So yeah actually that a perfect example of someone who that happens to be your friend Right. And so you get the benefit. But what if I want that benefit? Like, I don't know your friend, but I'm going to Rome and I want to know those places. If your friend wants to, he can make any list that he makes public and then I can just find it. So when I land in Rome, I'll open Zest. There's a thing that says popular nearby lists. And it will show me from most popular to least what people have made into lists. So he might have made a list called like Rome bangers or whatever. And like these are his top spots. He can write a note. We're actually we haven't added the note feature yet, but we're testing it. But very soon he'll be able to write a note and say, like, get the, you know, Sicilian slice or whatever. um but yeah basically like we want to turn those types of people the people who are you know list makers who have the google maps or the google docs or the apple notes we want to turn them into tastemakers and let other people benefit from their taste um but generally if your buddy were on zest and you landed you would just see where he went um but you would see the places that he either rated highly or went back to um if he thumbs down anything obviously it would be gone and then there's sort of this middle ground where it's like oh he didn't do any like you know kind of curation work but he did go to these places and so it might be valuable info for you yeah because i was going to say otherwise then it turns back into yelp because then you're seeing all the negative stuff and you're like well i don't want to go there possibly even though it got good reviews etc etc it's really just designed on the the the positive experiences that people like and then you I guess make that educated guess of like, okay, go ahead. I did forget to mention that we don't show public reviews at all. So we only show you your friends' reviews. Otherwise, if you don't have any friends who've been there, you won't see any reviews. You'll see the sort of AI synopsis. So it'll say, this is what people suggest ordering. This is what people thought overall of the service or the vibe. These are the best dishes. This is the kind of explainer of the place. and then you'll see like these are similar places or these are places that you've been that are similar but you won't see just like what the crowd thinks which we do on purpose because we do kind of want it to be this like private network and our long-term vision would be that maybe you see friends of friends not your friends necessarily I mean you'll see your friends if they've been there but you also see where your friend went and so you'll be able to basically be like oh I trust my friend and therefore i trust their friend yeah i think i think facebook has facebook has that function right it's where like a friend of a friend can see you right so it's not like only friends because then nobody can find you if they were trying to find you it's at least what that six degrees of separation where it's like at least there's enough connectivity that you're like all right yeah let me let me take a look at it but you'd be amazed at how many people like if you just link your card how many places each person has been um like i've been to 894 places i think was the last time I checked. Wow. And that's across the globe, across many cities. So if one person just adds me, then they'll just have tons of stuff to look at. And now imagine you had three or four friends. They each have 200 to 800 places. Now, all of a sudden, you actually have network density in every city. Yeah, you guys curated some data, right? So in 2025, based upon all the aggregate history you guys found, here are kind of the top dining categories that you found. cafes bars mexican those were the top three and then it goes down into bakeries american fast food pizza ice cream uh japanese sushi italian but why do you why would you why did cafe bar kind of sit at the top and mexican at the top of that list yeah i i honestly think it's such a it actually really encouraged me when i saw that data because at first i was like okay like when you look at any data like that it's kind of like generic right you're like okay yeah people drink coffee But what I really think it means is that people like to hang out and like they like these third spaces or fourth spaces or whatever you want to call them. But like the idea of a place to meet up with people. Obviously, we have a lot of users in New York and the Bay Area where people like kind of they're working in a downtown and then they meet up at a bar or they're getting coffee on their way to work. So I think that kind of pushes it a little bit further. But I really think it means that people are like social and they want to be with each other. and those types of places are more beneficial for that. But the other thing that I learned from that data that I'm working on, because I designed the app as well, is that I think we need to break out coffee, like morning, and then I think nightlife, and then food. So I think there's actually like three categories. It's like food, coffee, and morning, and nightlife. And so coffee and morning is like bakeries, coffee, tea, and then nightlife is like bars, you know, late night food. And then there's like just like the core of like lunch and dinner. Because I think otherwise it does get very biased. Yeah. Well, the coffee space especially, right? Because technically, even though Starbucks, Dunkin' are chains, right? People still go, right? Some of the good Starbucks have those lounges, those areas where people are going to mingle and meet up. And it's like if you get rid of them, then now all of a sudden you've taken out that kind of social piece where maybe it is a good Starbucks. I mean, we all know the menu. We all know the drinks, et cetera. But to your point, well, is this Starbucks better than this Starbucks because this barista is here and not this one? And then, yeah, just separate it out into like an actual like little mountain cafe out in Colorado when I go out skiing, right? There's this little cafe up in the mountain, and it's like it's just a cool spot. The baristas just want to chat with you. They want to know where you're from. Are you local? I mean, they usually know that pretty quick. But it's just a fun, hip place to be. And you're like, I could hang out here for a couple hours and just do some work, chat with people that come in from all over the world. So, yeah, definitely. Yeah, they are different. But but I like the general push. I think it was the Starbucks CEO recently who was like, we need to make our Starbucks more like a place that you would hang out in like the 90s and like friends. Right. Like, you know, they would meet up at a cafe and like I miss that. You know, I have espresso machine that I that I've like gotten better and better at over the years. And I have friends over on the weekend to like host little kind of breakfast mornings with. And it's so fun to just have a reason to gather. Yeah, for sure. Talk to me about the waitlist strategy, right? I went to go. I literally got on today and I was like, you know what? Let me check out this. And I was like, wait, I need a code to get in. So but you're intentional with this. It's not a, you know, a no one can get in. Why the waitlist strategy? Why can't people just access it like any other app? Yeah, well, it's actually funny timing because we're just now removing the waitlist pretty soon. We made the decision to remove the waitlist. Really, what it came down to is I think we're all just obsessed with quality. We want to make something that's actually useful, that actually works, that is interesting and fun and does something for you. Because just to be honest, like there's so many apps out there. We're all sick apps. Like I don't think anyone's looking for new apps. They're not like, oh, browsing the app store, hoping that there's something cool for me. So I think if an app tries to get into your life today, it has to really do something valuable. And so we were trying to build that. And we wanted to wait before, you know, we opened the floodgates towards where we had something that we actually felt solved real problems. And honestly, like there's still more for us to do. like we are a small team um we're four people uh and we're building this like every day um but i do think that we're getting to the point where you can download this app get a ton of value um have an amazing experience like i love when people text me and they like oh i went to this place that was a wreck on zest like and it was one of the wrecks that was not from a friend It was from Zest being like Mario you will like this place And they had an amazing experience And the, you know, the owner came by and hung out with them. And they, you know, brought them all these great dishes. And it was amazing. Like, that's what we want. And so, yeah, we were waiting until the product was kind of mature enough to do that. So until the wait list is officially gone, I'll happily give your listeners a code so that they can get in. But pretty soon we'll be open and they can invite their friends. Yeah, there's nothing worse than you see a two-star, but it's like the hole in the wall place. It gets two-star because it looks dungy and has no signage and all this. And then you eat the food and it blows your mind because the owners, they're focused on food, not necessarily all the aesthetics and rent and everything else. Absolutely. And that's the data that we think we can get with Zest that no other platform can. Like the place that you go to and then you go back to, even though it's rated two stars, that should mean by definition it's not rated two stars on Zest, right? And we have a different rating system where it's out of 10. So you'll get like a 9.2 or an 8.6 or whatever. But we think that the signal that we get from the credit card spend means that we can actually better categorize places like that. Well, absolutely. And as a user, you don't have to remember, okay, let me upload the places I've went to or load everything. It's like, all right, it's going to pull it. All I got to do is go in and give it a quick thumbs up, thumbs down. And that's all I really have to do per se. Or to your point, if one of my buddies comes to Chicago and says, hey, where should we eat? Hey, here's a quick list. And I just shoot them over my Chicago top. I don't know. Quick joints like the Portillo's, the pizza places. You just got to go here if you get a chance. Yeah. Which, by the way, I've never been to Chicago. I've got to get this list. Oh, yeah. Yeah, for sure. I'll definitely create a Chicago. Because there's so much food here that you could have a list for everything. I mean, it's known for its food. Yeah. But the other beauty of it is that you could just send your profile link. And anyone, even if they don't have Zest, they can just open it in their browser on their phone and they can see every favorite of yours across the entire globe. So that's like the idea is that you won't even have to make that list if you don't want to. obviously you can you can put thought into it you can write a nice description you can write little notes for each place but eventually like the idea would just be that you know which friends you trust you tap on their faces you get a great wreck you know how much time that would save me because people do come into town i actually had some buddies that were in town um they're in tennessee now and they came in for the bears game the the playoff game and he's like hey we're staying here where can we eat we we just need something that's like we don't want upscale we want kind of like just good upscale bar food and i'm just like oh shit now i gotta like go through and look at like what's in that area because i don't remember you know all the spots and joints and send them all the recommendations that would have saved me so much freaking time yeah yeah i'm excited for you to try it i'll definitely shoot you a code right after this sorry that it wasn't available immediately yeah no that's okay um we only got a few minutes left a couple quick takes what's one thing about the future food tech that everyone is currently getting wrong i mean i think i honestly think delivery like i know it's not the future of food tech but it feels like it's the current and therefore will continue to be the future but i really think delivery just messes everything up like it messes everything up i mean obviously it's a lifeline to a lot of businesses and and i think there's a lot of benefit that these businesses get from it but i think that the experience that you get from delivery is just such a poor recreation of the restaurant and like you know by the time it gets there they're up charging you now to get it quickly versus get getting it after they stop somewhere else like they're just adding fees everywhere that they're taking money from and then they're giving you a worse experience and that experience is tied to the restaurant's name and that chef right that's true and i think like eating is half or you know no it's a part of the experience it's not the full experience um and i think that like you really miss out a lot when you're just like oh i'll just order delivery i i think like the laziness like i mean we all do it i do it yeah but the laziness it's it's hurting yourself as well as the restaurant yeah me and my wife talk about that all the time we're like don't order from here because the delivery is terrible by the time you get it home the packaging that they use the food gets soggy whereas you talk to this place and you're like no no they package it right they put this on the side that on the side so it doesn't make it a sloppy mess yeah they get it yeah and they get it and it does determine even though i may like the other place better i'm like no no We're only going to eat there if we're going to physically sit down and eat because I want that food brought out to me and I got to consume it right away versus. I mean, we talk about fresh ingredients. We talk about, you know, grind your coffee right before you make the espresso or whatever. But then we order food and then it takes 45 to an hour to get here. It's not going to be the same. Yeah. All right. Based off the momentum, you know, 2026 is still early on. But what do you think, if anything, knocks off cafes for the number one spot this coming year? Hmm. That's a great question. I mean, I think we might be putting our finger on the scale because we're probably going to break out cafes into a separate section. But I would say, I mean, quick service restaurants are just such a useful thing to have in your life. Like to be able to just like go in, not be bothered necessarily by the service and just get what you want and eat it. So I think like there's just so many concepts like that that are getting better and better that I would say like it's not really a cuisine, but it's a category. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Last one. You have one meal to add to your personal map. Where are you going and who are you eating with? oh man i'm obsessed with thai food um and i recently became like such a regular at this thai restaurant that the like the sort of matriarch woman who owns it always comes out and like asked me about my day i just introduced my girlfriend to her because i had been doing a lot of takeout and and i was like this is chan and it was like bringing home my girlfriend to my mom um so that place is a very boring name it's called delicious tie and it's on college ave in oakland but i would say like if anyone comes out to the east bay that's the best the best tie i've had it's so good gotta love it gotta love some good tie all right mario where does everyone go to check out the app check out you and then hit them up with that code just if they want to getting the app early on. Yeah, yeah. So ZestMaps.com, like Google Maps, ZestMaps, is the best way to get the app. You can also search ZestMaps in the App Store, and then the code would be just try Zest, T-R-Y-Z-E-S-T. But pretty soon the code will be gone, and you can just get in. So either way. Love it, love it. I love tech. I love this whole social bubble around this app. It's not just another app. So I'm excited. Literally, I think as soon as we get off, I'm going to get on and play around with it. Because I'm really excited to see which of my friends, if they have it or not, and then be like, dude, you got to get on this. Because that's an easy way for us to get out the restaurants that need to get their voice out. So I appreciate your time. Follow me at Mario. And then also, I just got to call out the great Anthony Bourdain poster. I just noticed that. Yes, yes. Can't go wrong with Bourdain. Yes. R.I.P. To the main man. All right, Mario. That's it. I know it was a quick one, but that was a lot of information. Absolutely love it. So we'll put all this down in the show notes. Guys, you like this, other episodes, check us out, Apple, Spotify, YouTube. You know where to find us. And until next time, we'll catch you on the sunny side. Hospitalitychain.com, the world's first online hub designed for the hospitality, culinary, and catering industry. From leading food and beverage brands to professional food service equipment, hospitalitychain.com makes sourcing simple search select buy direct and save all in one global marketplace
