Waitr, Waitr, Everywhere

The perfect waiter is forgettable. Standing on the sidewalk in your suit or little black dress after a fine-dining experience, you might puzzle over how your charcuterie board just appeared on the table earlier—its rapidly disappearing contents another story—or the water glass that never once clinked or sloshed. What amazing service! …

Well, flatware, plateware, formalwear: meet software. Waitr App has arrived, and with it the ultimate in convenient and seamless hospitality. Download the app and you’re granted touch-screen access to local restaurants, their menus, and an ordering system through which the food on your screen can be made tangible. For now, Waitr limits itself to delivery and carry-out services for its restaurant clients in Lake Charles (where it was founded), Lafayette, Houston, and now Baton Rouge; but founder Chris Meaux has designs on dining-in.

“We built this platform for restaurants to help grow their business,” said Meaux, who helped conceive the app in 2013, at a StartUp Weekend in Gainesville, Florida. A venture marrying food and tech seemed especially prescient for Meaux, who’s logged time in both industries at McAfee Antivirus (and a handful of start-ups) and as a restaurateur. 

Back home, in Lake Charles, he and a recruited team put out feelers to local restaurants, knowing all the while that even if his idea seemed new-fangled or Jetsons-era, it wouldn’t always. “Three years ago, restaurants didn’t have a clue that they had to make a change,” said Meaux. “They didn’t realize how much technology was going to change their business.”  

But Meaux’s looking glass afforded a more promising view of the consumer base. “In each market, innovators use [a new technology] first, early adopters see ‘something cool,’ and then the early majority says, ‘Well, the early adopters like it.’ That’s when the later majority says, ‘Well, it’s already tested and proven, and people seem to like it,’” outlined Meaux.

From its red-and-white checkered roof to the squeaking vinyl booths and stacks of candy available for purchase by the door, Tony’s Pizza doesn’t appear to have noticed the new century, let alone sweated over it. Orders are placed at the front counter, reached by a queue that curves amiably in the small lobby, often out the door; your pleas for meatball poboys and fried ravioli are then scrawled onto paper and handed straight back to the kitchen. 

“Bringing in technology was an obstacle for us,” said manager Chris Dickson, whose late grandfather Charles Dickson started the Lake Charles landmark in 1968. Yet Waitr succeeded in squeezing in, picking up Tony’s as one of its first clients, in early 2015. “It took a little bit of time for some of the staff to get adjusted to it,” added Dickson, but, in the absence of its own delivery service, the restaurant was drawn in by the prospect of a ready-made delivery system. 

“We put a restaurant’s brand in front of customers right at time they’re making the decision on what they’ll eat,” said Meaux. Once a restaurant in Waitr’s system is selected, users can view the restaurant’s entire menu, with most items illustrated in realistic pictures; add-ons are easily found as well, a benefit to the diner and the restaurant. “People can customize their order to their liking,” added Meaux, “and it increases average tickets by about 30 or 40 percent without menu item prices going up.” 

The order is placed and paid for (with a sliding bar for optional gratuity) through the app, which gives users the option of saving card information and addresses. Past orders are logged on your account as well, for quick repeats in the future. The app issues an estimated time when your order will be ready; for delivery, pop-up notifications keep you current. (“Christy has picked up your order at Salad Shop.”)

Meaux estimates a ten to fifteen percent overall growth in to-go sales and foot traffic for restaurants that employ Waitr. “Before Waitr, the only ways these restaurants had to grow their business were through traditional advertising and raising prices,” he said. “We even had one restaurant tell KPLC that their overall business doubled after signing with us.”

As for the consumers logging onto Waitr, delight has been more immediate. Laura Grantham Broussard, a young mother of four with a fifth on the way, has weaved Waitr into her family’s budget, reallocating funds they’d ordinarily use to dine out. “We’re not always ready for the full restaurant experience,” said Broussard. “And restaurants aren’t ready for the full Broussard experience.”

On her phone, Broussard can configure a menu that will feed her family without being needlessly extravagant. “There’s no pressure with the app,” she said. “If you call in [to the restaurant to order directly] and you get a total that’s too much, you can’t just hang up.”

One year after launching in Lake Charles, Waitr houses fifty of the city’s restaurants on its network. “We’re the perfect size city for this, I think,” said Dickson. “All these drivers can drive ten or fifteen minutes to where they’re going.”

How will Waitr adapt to Baton Rouge then? “One of our slogans is ‘Local everywhere,’” said Meaux. Waitr’s restaurants are of the homegrown variety—nothing larger or more impersonal than a small chain. That familiarity bolsters Lake Charles’ enthusiasm for the app. “You’re helping not just one, but two local businesses when you order,” said Broussard. 

For the mires and melee that plague Baton Rouge traffic, Waitr will course-correct. The app only shows those restaurants located within a ten- or fifteen-minute drive. Your Waitr wouldn’t bring you cold food.

Meaux and his team continue to tweak their product; version 2.0 is on the way later this year. “We’ll take things that are great about the app and make it even simpler,” said Meaux. He pictures a future for Waitr inside the restaurants themselves, with diners using their smartphones to place orders, divide their own checks, or transmit their heart’s desire (or stomach’s grumbling) to their living, breathing server. “Part of the restaurant business is human interaction, but this makes human interaction more simple,” said Meaux. “When you look for your server, they’re not in the back punching in orders or splitting checks.”

It’s a somewhat bizarre vision, but Meaux is confident: He just needs those first believers to bite.

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waitrapp.com

Download the app to view a list of restaurants available in your area.