Restaurants generated more than a trillion dollars in sales last year — but they don’t control the payment rails those dollars flow through.
In this episode, Ben Leventhal (founder of Eater, Resy, and now Blackbird) joins Robert Hackett to explain why that’s a problem, how loyalty and payments have failed independent restaurants, and where crypto fits into fixing it.
Ben breaks down:
- Why most restaurant tech misses the point
- How Blackbird uses crypto without making restaurants think about crypto
- What “restaurant-first” really means in payments and loyalty
- Why decentralization only makes sense at scale
- Lessons from building multiple companies in hospitality
- Why we’re living in the golden age of restaurants
- Plus: favorite NYC spots, founder productivity hacks, and the smallest hill he’ll die on.
This is a grounded conversation about technology, ownership, and the future of restaurants — from someone who’s been building in the space for over a decade.
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