Category: Coronavirus
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One certainty we woke up to yesterday is that California had passed Prop. 22, the controversial ballot measure aimed at keeping California gig workers independent contractors. The success of the measure means that app-based companies like Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, and Instacart will be exempt from California’s AB 5 law, which requires businesses to classify gig…
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Reef Technology, which turns underutilized urban space into what it calls “neighborhood hubs,” announced today it has just raised a $700 million syndicate investment to further that vision. TechCrunch first reported the news. Softbank and Mubadala led the round, along with Oaktree, UBS Asset Management, and Target Global. This brings Reef’s total funding to $701.9…
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Another day, another grim piece of news for the restaurant biz. Over the weekend, San Francisco announced it will pause its reopening plan for indoor restaurant dining. The decision follows moves from a growing list of cities around the U.S. as cases of COVID-19 continue to break records. SF restaurants were set to increase dine-in…
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It’s our weekly restaurant tech news wrapup! Food delivery aggregators: love ‘em or hate ‘em, few would at this point deny that restaurants need them right now. Maybe that’s not where we’d like to be as a restaurant industry, but it’s where the pandemic has forced businesses — a point underscored by new survey data…
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A new concept is taking shape in the world of virtual restaurants: the fine-dining virtual food hall. That idea might have been outrageous one year ago, but it’s practically necessity now, thanks to the pandemic-induced meltdown of the restaurant industry. In response, third-party hospitality and restaurant tech companies are emerging to assist these high-end concepts…
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Since the start of the pandemic, the words “contactless” and “touchless” have become the new buzz words in food tech. Nespresso Professional is the latest company to accommodate this COVID-19-prevention protocol: Today, the company announced the release of three new touchless features for the Nespresso Momento machines. The Nespresso Momento machines are commonly found in…
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Nine New York City neighborhoods are at risk of having to shut down both indoor and outdoor dining due to rising COVID-19 cases, according to a Sunday press briefing from Mayor Bill de Blasio. Pending approval from New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, NYC will close schools and nonessential businesses in those nine zip codes, which…
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Welcome to the Spoon’s weekly restaurant tech roundup. To subscribe, go here. Achieving a contactless restaurant experience when it comes to the drive-thru lane is easier said than done, according to QSR Magazine’s 2020 Drive-Thru Study, released today in partnership with SeeLevelHX. Every year, QSR Magazine’s study looks at various aspects of drive-thru performance, from…
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NYC-based ghost kitchen operator Zuul announced this week that its virtual food hall, Zuul Market, is now live. The new initiative is a cross between an online marketplace and a white-label delivery platform. The marketplace sells a limited number of items from restaurants that are currently members of Zuul’s ghost kitchen facility in SoHo, including…
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Inexplicably, I’ve always wished I could have experienced the Automat in its heyday. Created at the tail-end of the Nineteenth Century, Automats consisted of a wall of cubbies containing simple food and beverage items users could unlock for a nickel. It was essentially fast food before fast food existed. Fast forward to 2020, and it…
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The big restaurant news over the weekend was a new set of findings from the CDC that suggest a higher risk for COVID-19 among those who eat in restaurant dining rooms. The inescapably obvious point is that the findings are worrying for restaurants planning to reopen or increase the capacity of their dining rooms. That…
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Plant-based seafood startup Ocean Hugger said this week it is in the midst of planning a relaunch, according to an interview with Food Navigator. In June, the New York-based company had to cease operations, citing the COVID-19 pandemic as the reason. Up to that point, Ocean Hugger ran a promising business selling its “tuna” and…
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