a16z crypto show From Eater to Blackbird: Ben Leventhal on Restaurants, Loyalty, and Rebuilding Payments
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Feb 11, 2026 Ben Leventhal, founder of Eater, Resy, and Blackbird, is a restaurant and hospitality builder focused on payments, loyalty, and tech. He discusses why current payment rails fail restaurants. He explains using crypto to enable ownership and low-friction loyalty without making restaurants deal with crypto. He also covers go-to-market strategies, hiring for restaurant love, and the realities of kitchen life.
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Career Built From Loving Restaurants
- Ben never worked a restaurant shift but reverse-engineered his career from loving meals and social experiences.
- He credits most happy memories being in restaurants as the origin of his obsession.
Crypto Returns Identity To Consumers
- Ben Leventhal says crypto lets Blackbird transfer ownership of consumer identity back to customers by storing anonymized data on-chain.
- He argues decentralizing payments makes sense only at large scale and aims for eventual network ownership shift to restaurants.
Blockchains Aren't Required But Helpful
- Ben notes you could build a shared payments network without blockchains but blockchain can make it easier and more natural.
- He compares Visa's origin as a semi-permissioned consortium to early decentralized payments.
