this is probably the most interesting response on this thread so far. it highlights a lot of what i've experienced. here's some perspective: i know a lot of folks in the NYC restaurant world at various levels, but mostly GM, beverage, and owner types. not crazy big places, but really solid places.

they ALL complain about the same stuff - rent going up, food costs going through the roof, inability to hire and retain great talent, etc.

These are the frustrations of many SMBs in all industries, but it seems that, at least in major urban areas and top restaurant markets, the problems have been exacerbated over the past decade.

Add to this, the trend of celebrity chefs, instagram, yelp reviews, etc., etc., and it can become just overwhelming for an owner that came up in a traditional business and all of a sudden finds herself struggling.

There's good news however; younger diners go out more often - but spend less. there's a real opportunity to build great restaurants outside of the normal 5-top cities (minneapolis, charlotte, etc., are in the news more often).

More good news: Entrepreneurs such as myself are finding that it these SMBs don't have the same access to great solutions that larger companies have. Also, there's finally many new entrants in a space that's been dominated by shitty, expensive, and difficult-to-use technology (opentable is finally getting some competition as are all the older POS systems).

Through that lens, I think there's a great opportunity to provide restaurants with tools that should make it easier to run a part of their business through automation AND use data to perhaps optimize what could easily be 30% of their business.

To me, that's something worth investigating and testing.