tapviva

We found this piece interesting. K.C. MacLaren, Starbucks’ director of mobile and emerging platforms, discusses the importance of mobile applications:

With mobile, there’s something to do with consumers which uplevels the Starbucks experience when they are on their way to the store, at the store and maybe after they’ve gotten their food and beverage. It is that segment of the journey with people that we couldn’t reach before.

Read the whole article here.

Your source for the latest in food + technology news:

1. Gilt Groupe launches Gilt Taste, a culinary tasting extravaganza, buy artisan foods in several categories, Meat, Seafood, Cheese & Dairy, Pantry, Sweets, Produce and Equipment, check out the About Page.
2. GrubHub sued over price differences in store and on their site, learn more from NBCChicago.
3. Goodplates, a foodspotting type app/site with heavy emphasis on written reviews and social, gives its first public demo, learn more on Boston.com.
4. A New York Times post by Julia Moskin today has a great write-up on comparing recipe search engines. Find links, reviews and a bit of “how they work.”
5. There may be trouble ahead for reservations industry leader OpenTable, Google may provide competition, some current customers are frustrated with the business and the CEO, Jeff Jordan, has transitioned roles, read more on SFGate.
6. Learn more about Square founder Jack Dorsey by reading his interview with Wired Magazine.
7. McDonald’s to test consumer facing touchscreen kiosks in European stores, learn more from InvestorPlace.
8. In the “somewhat related to Food + Technology” category – Business Insider has a slideshow of the 10 coolest start-up kitchens.
9. Quiznos is working with Groupon to offer a 8 sub “punch-card” deal, buy 8 subs at Quiznos, all at half price. This is big because Groupon has yet to prove it can create repeat customers, read more at the Chicago Tribune.
10. SFWeekly publishes its annual “Best of” list – always a great read.

Let us know what you think of any of these stories – and what we may have missed in Food + Technology news.

Check out the tapviva mention on the Today Show blog today - http://goo.gl/aomQz – also mentions GrubHub, Chewsy and Vegout!

Let us know what you think!

We are excited to announce that we will be working with La Cocina to be their point of sale solution for the La Cocina food truck, read more about the truck here. La Cocina is an amazing SF based non-profit, definitely checkout their site, and read more about La Cocina below.

While tapviva is excited to provide our services for free, we would also love to be able to provide the necessary iPads and/or touchscreens for free to La Cocina as well. To that end, we are looking for any donations of used or new iPads or
touchscreen monitors to give to La Cocina. We appreciate any help, whether it is a donation, a blog post, an article, or a retweet! Thanks in advance.

The La Cocina Mission Statement:

The mission of La Cocina is to cultivate low-income food entrepreneurs as they formalize and grow their businesses by providing affordable commercial kitchen space, industry-specific technical assistance and access to market
opportunities. We focus primarily on women from communities of color and immigrant communities. Our vision is that entrepreneurs will become economically self-sufficient and contribute to a vibrant economy doing what they love to do.

The La Cocina Family:

La Cocina is a home for 30 up-and-coming businesses and a growing roster of graduates, representing all aspects of local food from gourmet catering to specialty products to farmers market stands.  As a result of these businesses and La Cocina’s support, community jobs have been created and thousands have been introduced to the flavors of the world. As a testament to their quality, the businesses of La Cocina sell their products locally, regionally, nationally, and even internationally.

Check out the La Cocina businesses.

Thank you again for your help!

We have been thinking about discovering unique, local, food dishes and have come across a few sites we find extremely innovative and helpful. In the very near future, we at tapviva hope to work with all the companies below to provide comprehensive restaurant and dish reviews throughout the tapviva ordering process.

• SporkHub – Find local top dishes, add your own critique and share with friends. Create a to-do list of dishes you would like to try. Can also access online. Available for the iPhone.
• FoodSpotting – Find local dishes, then mark it was “want” and/or “nom”. Search for similar dishes. Create local food guides using already created dishes, or have a gorgeous pictorial view of well known guides such as the 7×7 Big Eat guide. Available for iPhone, Android and web.
• Chewsy – Use GPS technology to find local dishes; get ideas for what to order before you arrive at a restaurant. And now, add pictures to any dish. Currently available for iPhone.
• Grubcrawl – A social tour of local restaurants. Visit three different restaurants on a tour, and try three unique dishes. Make new friends along the way.
• Urbanspoon – Sort by type of food, price point and neighborhood, the app returns restaurants that meet your criteria in a slotmachine type interface. Focus on discovering new restaurants, no emphasis on specific dishes. Use the app on iPhone, Android and Blackberry.

SporkHub App Screen

Please let us know which of these apps/sources for local food discovery you use and why! Are there any that we missed? Please share!