Olo Teams with Amazon and Canada’s Conscious Eater
6 Min Read By MRM Staff
Olo Teams with Amazon
Olo, an online food ordering solution for the restaurant industry, and Amazon are teaming up to streamline online ordering, enabling thousands of Olo restaurant customers to gain easy integration with Amazon Restaurants.
“We’re thrilled to work with Amazon to provide Olo’s base of restaurant customers with a new delivery sales channel that drives increased visibility,” said Noah Glass, Founder & CEO of Olo. “Amazon’s obsession with providing great customer and restaurant experience supports the evolving expectations and behaviors of today’s consumer. We’re excited to connect more of Olo’s restaurant brands with Amazon Restaurants.”
“We are excited to leverage Olo’s digital ordering technology and continue rapidly growing our network of restaurants to give Amazon Prime members more options for fast delivery from their favorite brands,” said Gus Lopez, general manager of Amazon Restaurants. “This integration will enable Amazon Restaurants to onboard new restaurants with ease, as well as quickly add more new choices and delivery options for customers.”
Amazon Restaurants has integrated into Rails, Olo’s application programming interface (API) designed to make it easy for restaurant operators to list their menus on third-party marketplaces and drive incremental sales without having to install tablets and manage orders in multiple places. Customer orders from Amazon Restaurants are integrated seamlessly into existing point-of-sale (POS) systems, reducing confirmation and response times and reducing the likelihood of manual errors.
“Our customers love getting ultra-fast delivery of their favorite dishes from Buca Di Beppo through Amazon Restaurants,” said Trish Giordano, executive vice president of sales and marketing at Earl Enterprises. “The integration with Olo will allow us to quickly expand our offering with Amazon Restaurants to even more locations enabling more customers to get our delicious, quality dishes delivered right to their doorstep.”
LevelUp Partners with delivery.com
LevelUp, a restaurant technology provider connecting restaurants and consumers through mobile order ahead, announced a partnership with delivery.com to provide more restaurant options to LevelUp and Chase Pay app users. In turn, delivery.com benefits by giving their restaurant partners nationwide access to more consumers and incremental orders from LevelUp. Through LevelUp’s exclusive distribution channels, like Chase Pay, even more consumers will have access to thousands of additional restaurants nationwide to place their mobile order-ahead.
“delivery.com has been a key player in driving growth in the local restaurant economy across the country. Through this partnership, we are driving more business to its restaurant partners while providing LevelUp users with even more dining options when ordering ahead,” said Seann Moriarty, head of partnerships at LevelUp.
delivery.com restaurants will receive LevelUp-powered orders the same as any other delivery.com order, requiring no additional processes or tech. For consumers using LevelUp partner apps, delivery.com’s 12,000+ businesses are now readily available to order from with a few taps. Any restaurant partner working with delivery.com will have immediate access to millions of consumers across LevelUp partner apps or distribution channels.
“Our partnership with LevelUp gives our restaurant partners access to a vast network of local consumers, which in turn leads to more orders for our small businesses,” said Nat Brogadir, VP of business development and finance at delivery.com. “Offering restaurants additional visibility and traffic through the LevelUp integration with our API is just another way delivery.com is constantly expanding our offering for our merchants.”
Eight Tables Will Open Next Month
Eight Tables by George Chen is set to open October 3. The restaurant is inspired by the dining style of shifan tsai, or “private chateau cuisine,” that has its roots in Chinese culinary history and has recently re-emerged in cosmopolitan centers such as Shanghai and Hong Kong. 
The restaurant will offer a 10-course tasting menu featuring the amuse course “Nine Essential Flavors of Chinese Cuisine” (Jiu Gong Ge) to kick-start an epicurean adventure starting at $225 per person, with unique wine pairing by Anthony Kim, the head sommelier, and hand-crafted cocktails by bar director Anthony Keels. Andrew Fuentes is the general manager. Robin Lin is the chef du cuisine.
“At Eight Tables we want to present elegant Chinese cuisine in a different light, bringing the glory of a classic cuisine to the present with modern interpretations from a San Francisco perspective,” said George Chen, creator, founder, and executive chef of Eight Tables. “Crafted in a world-class show kitchen, the menu will push Chinese culinary boundaries and serve as an ongoing wellspring of novel approaches to a grand cuisine.”
The menu starts with a tantalizing display of nine cold appetizers, moves into savory courses and intermezzo coursings of pastries, and finishes with sweets created by China Live’s talented pastry chef, Luis Villavelazquez. The entire menu is structured around the best offerings of the micro-seasons and prepared with ancient and modern Chinese cooking techniques. As guests enter the restaurant they are greeted in a welcoming foyer with a custom bar cart that provides personalized tableside cocktail service throughout the evening. Old vinyl jazz albums and vintage Shanghainese crooners play from a mid-century record cabinet as guests sip martinis while escorted to one of the eight semi-private dining tables. The elegant, mid-century, bespoke atmosphere evokes a visit to a private home, with walls adorned with Chen’s personal effects and generations of family portraits. As a nod to traditional Chinese dining, the larger tables feature brass inlaid Lazy-Susans on custom tables and chairs of Northern Chinese Elm.
The interior, envisioned by Chen and executed by acclaimed design and concept firm AvroKO, “centers on the perspective of a second-generation Chinese-American merchant family that has begun to incorporate American styles into their culturally Chinese life,” said AvroKO design director Andrew Lieberman. “The restrained palette of creams, whites, tans, and brass creates a backdrop for a sophisticated, multi-course dinner highlighted by the intense colors and flavors of contemporary Chinese cuisine.”
Toronto To Welcome Palm Lane
Chase Hospitality Group president Steven Salm called on culinary director Tyler Shedden to rethink the lack-lustre dish. Taking inspiration from his trips around the world, Shedden layers fresh and inventive ingredients and house-made dressings over both classic and unexpected combinations. .
“Palm Lane is here to prove that having a salad as a meal everyday does not have to be monotonous,” said Salm. “We have over 80 ingredients to choose from, so that every item featured on Palm Lane’s menu is truly unique. As always with Chase Hospitality Group, the emphasis is on fresh and sustainably sourced, so you can feel good about what you eat.”
Bowls include the Azteca (brown rice, black beans, romaine, pickled vegetables, avocado, corn, pepitas, cilantro, tortilla crisps, pico de gallo, chipotle cashew crema, cumin lime vinaigrette); and Seoul (rice, daikon sauteed spinach, carrots, kimchi, imchi furikake, poached egg, nori, scallions, sesame seeds, sweet soy vinaigrette). The Hulk smoothie blends apple, spinach, avocado, agave, lemon, coconut oil, mint, spirulina, hemp seeds; while The Assistant offers a creamier option with peanut butter, dates, oats, espresso, cocoa nibs, cocoa powder, almond milk. There is also a selection of cold-pressed juices and kombucha.
Back Bar USA Supports Hospitality Scholars
Full-service marketing, consulting and design firm, Back Bar USA, will award scholarships to University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) students throughout the 2017-2018 academic year
“UNLV continues to provide an exceptional education in the hospitality industry, as well as unparalleled local resources for students,” said Back Bar USA founder and UNLV alumnus, Tim Haughinberry. “These students are the future business leaders in Las Vegas, and Back Bar is proud to support their education.”
Back Bar USA established a scholarship program with UNLV in 2016. The 2017/2018 Back Bar USA scholarships will continue to be awarded to students in UNLV’s Hospitality Management program with requirements that include full-time enrollment in the Honors College, current residency in Nevada, completion of at least 60 credits and a minimum grade point average of 3.40.
When Back Bar USA scholarship candidates are selected, students will meet with Haughinberry, and chief executive officer, Flor Bernal, also a UNLV alumna. More information about the scholarships and eligibility requirements is available by contacting the Honors College Scholarship Committee of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas at (702) 895-3011 or via the website at www.unlv.edu.