Serious question: Why is finding good food so damn complicated? đ©
It was 2016 and I had just relocated to NYC from The Bay. I was beyond excited to dive head first into the biggest and best food city on the planet. From Burgers to Ramen to Pasta - I was ready to try the abundant offering of delicious & iconic dishes NYC had to offer.
So I did what every newbie does in this situation: I opened up Google and typed in âbest burger nycââŠ
I started by plowing through articles & listicles from Eater to Infatuation to TimeOut to The New York Times followed by cross referencing those recommendations with the restaurantsâ Instagram page, followed by sifting through hundreds of negative reviews on Yelp that had nothing to do with the actual burger (thanks, #Karen). Not to mention when you search âburgerâ on Yelp you get a fucking ad for McDonaldâs at the top đ (not helpful, Yelp). Finally, after narrowing down to the favorites, the final step: triangulating the restaurantâs whereabouts on Google Maps to figure out directions đ„”. SO EXHAUSTING and now I'm HANGRY.
A solid 45 minutes later, I finally came to the conclusion that the Emmy Burger from Emily was my target. As I made my way to the restaurant I text my long-time friend and fellow lover of food, Joe:
And thatâs when the idea of 8it was born. We immediately began mapping out the simplest way to help hungry people like us find and get to top-rated food in less than three thumb-taps.
We always joked about how many total minutes have been wasted by simply just trying to figure out what youâre in the mood to eat. Some relationships have ended over this exact argument. The same way people scroll Netflix for hours without ever watching anything.
We also thought it was bullshit how every other food app generalizes food into these broad cuisines like âAmerican Foodâ. People crave dishes not cuisines. Pho not Vietnamese, wings not American, pasta not Italian, tacos not Mexican. Sometimes you just want something Cheesy or Spicy. These normal human cravings werenât reflected in anything else out there.
At one point or another everyone has admitted to being "Hangry". It happens to all of us and can sneak up at any moment. Nothing is worse than feeling hangry and making a poor food decisions just cuz you need to get something in your stomach. That regret of blowing money on a underwhelming meal (AKA âa wasted fullâ) is something we wanted to tackle.
Why do people have to do research to find good food? We live in 2021 damnit. If Instagram ads knows I want Szechuan Chili Crunch Oil why do I have to spend 30 minutes doing restaurant detective work?
What about Yelp?! Don't even get me started. First off, when you search âramenâ on Yelp you get a bunch of restaurants that serve ramen. That's about as accurate as it gets. The first few results are actually just ads that restaurants pay for, so you donât actually know if theyâre good. The rest are restaurants who may serve ramen, but their star rating is not indicative of the dish, rather a rating of the whole restaurant. So, some monster #Karen could go in and leave a 1-star rating because there was a drafty front door even though the ramen was actually amazing. This makes the 5-star rating system completely flawed.
But that's not the only rating system, Zagat has a 30-point rating scale, Infatuation has a 10 point rating system, Google follows Yelp with the 5-star, and the list goes on. Why can't it just be simple? Would you recommend it or not? A simple binary system. If my buddy was in town looking for a great meal, would I send her here to eat this or no? It should be that simple.
Let's be honest, user generated review platforms have gotten completely outta hand. Anthony Bourdain said it best, "social media has become a democratic bathroom wall of opinions".
Itâs time for us to lean back on the experts. Sure âgreat foodâ is subjective, but each one of us has particular sources we trust. That doesnât mean it needs to be a complicated process. Whether that be 'Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives' or Eater or the Gotham Burger Social Club.
We wanted to make sure we built a PLATFORM that can house all the trusted voices in food in one place and give YOU the power to filter based on who you trust.
We hated the idea that a food critic or some "influencer" could create negative content about a restaurant and completely ruin their chances at success. If a dish sucks, just go on with your life. No need to absolutely destroy them. If a dish is amazing, we should be gassing up that restaurant and giving them all the props they deserve. And hey, my Mom always said, "if you donât have anything nice to say, donât say it at all".
Listen, Iâm all for reading an amazing 2,000 word article about the new opening of a restaurant while drinking my morning coffee. HOWEVER, when Iâm hangry on the corner of of 23rd & 7th, Iâm never going to find that one sentence where the writer recommends one specific dish from the meal and why. Letâs cut to the chase and give people the info they need.
As you've probably guessed by now, all these problems I've ranted about can be solved by using 8it, the simplest way to find the best food. We built 8it to make our own lives simpler, more efficient, and extremely delicious - now its your turn.
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