8 ms·

Flip creator gets into the grilled cheese business, Sequoia invests

60 points by logicalmoron 15y ago

timtadh 15y ago
I know restaurant names are often re-used, but I wanted point out there is already an awesome gourmet grilled cheese restaurant called "Melt".[1] see http://www.meltbarandgrilled.com http://www.meltbarandgrilled.com [1] I guess he called his "The Melt" edit: first hit in Google for "The Melt" as well.
- hugh3 15y ago
  Fun exercise: find a Mongolian Barbecue that isn't called "Genghis Khan".
  - brk 15y ago
    http://www.gomongo.com/ http://www.gomongo.com/ What do I win?
    - hugh3 15y ago
      You win a free meal at a delicious Mongolian Barbecue! It's called the Genghis Khan. Just go there and tell 'em I sent you.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - hnal943 15y ago
    http://www.flattopgrill.com/ http://www.flattopgrill.com/ you're right - that was fun!
- jhamburger 15y ago
  There was also a contestant on America's Next Great Restaurant with this idea: http://meltworks.com/ http://meltworks.com/
larrik 15y ago
Best. Headline. Ever.
- logicalmoron 15y ago
  Friend at D9 says they are damn delicious, too
- larrik 15y ago
  I don't understand the downvotes I'm getting. I really did enjoy the headline. It tells an awesome story in a tiny amount of space, and it makes me smile every time I read it. It's even got a main character, an interesting plot, and a twist ending!
wccrawford 15y ago
All the restaurant-related startups and announcements lately are an almost-daily reminder for me that when you have a good idea, jump on it. Ah well. I didn't have the contacts to pull it off, and it was only half an idea. :)
- hugh3 15y ago
  If you ask me, screw the grilled cheese restaurant. A grilled cheese van would be a licence to print money, second only to a cupcake van.
  - wccrawford 15y ago
    I meant the other, customer-centric ideas expressed, but it's true. In fact, Orlando FL has quite a few food vans that occasionally all park in the same area for a mini food fair and attract a lot of people. They've become quite popular in the last year or 2. (I'm sure it happens other places, but Orlando is what I know.)
    - khafra 15y ago
      Tampa only has stationary taco busses, except the food truck on MacDill AFB, but Seattle has had the mobile variety for years.
  - cpeterso 15y ago
    Will Y Combinator invest in my grilled cheese van? :)
    - hugh3 15y ago
      Depends. Do you have a cofounder? Are you aged between 20 and 25? Are you a technical founder who actually understands how to make a grilled cheese on your own, or are you just expecting to hire a grilled cheese expert? edit: Actually I think the ideal would be two technical founders with complementary skills. One knows how to make a grilled cheese, and the other one knows how to drive.
    - 15y ago
ctdonath 15y ago
Reminiscent of Starbucks' "Mobile Pour" joke ... which isn't that far from viable in a high-dollar high-traffic area. http://www.starbucks.com/blog/introducing-starbucks-mobile-pour http://www.starbucks.com/blog/introducing-starbucks-mobile-p...
hugh3 15y ago
Well, I do like grilled cheese, and I'm happy to have five more opening in the SF Bay Area (please be Berkeley, please be Berkeley) but... really? Sequoia Capital funds grilled cheese restaurants nowadays? I mean, apart from anything else it's going to make 'em look especially silly if it fails. I can see the annual report now. "This year we made $50 billion from five IPOs in the computer-aided drug discovery, computational nanotech, and metamaterials sectors. We also wrote off $10 million we invested in a grilled cheese chain."
- ktsmith 15y ago
  It's certainly possible that the deployment of five restaurants are just so that the developers have 100% control over the proving ground for their new software. It certainly sounds like this is a technology company to me anyway.
- patio11 15y ago
  "We also paid a trifling sum of money for an option on participation in whatever the next thing the Flip creator does after he gets the grilled cheese thing out of his system."
- blacksmythe 15y ago
  More realistically, "We made $2 billion from five IPOs in the computer-aided drug discovery, computational nanotech, and metamaterials sectors. We have 20 modestly profitable companies (including a grilled cheese chain), and we wrote off investments in over a hundred other companies."
- pitdesi 15y ago
  No Berkeley in the first four: Downtown, Lower Market, Bay Bridge, Palo Alto... http://themelt.com/locations http://themelt.com/locations
davidw 15y ago
I make a pretty mean sandwich, with oven-fresh bread, mozzarella, tomatoes, and prosciutto, with a bit of salt and pepper for seasoning. Anyone care to fund me? I'll name my shop "Panini Veri" (non quelle schifezze spacciate per panini italiani!)
- hugh3 15y ago
  Hmm, I think I'd need to try a sample before I invested...
  - davidw 15y ago
    All you have to do is drop by Padova. Wine, as per the other comment below, is included.
- fkcek 15y ago
  Serve with a good glass of wine and it wouldn't be a bad idea.
powertower 15y ago
It's an interesting angle here... When someone wants to eat, they pay immediately by mobile in a quick and easy way (hopefully), and hence lock themselves into not being able to change their minds, or going somewhere else, or not going anywhere but home.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
hook 15y ago
It would be even cooler if a quadcopter delivered your grilled cheese sandwich within minutes no matter where you were. Why doesn't that exist yet?
- bh42222 15y ago
  You know... that sounds doable. Quadcopter are very fast and can go very far before they lose power. And a single sandwich is not a very heavy load. If you are outdoors and can give it your GPS coordinates, a single restaurant/quadcopter port, could serve a very large area.
  - hugh3 15y ago
    Given advances in ballistics I think a grilled cheese cannon would work just as well, and be cheaper.
    - matwood 15y ago
      I would be blowing $$$/week ordering grilled cheeses for unsuspecting friends.
    - hartror 15y ago
      Advances? In ballistics? Who are you Leonardo Da Vinci?
  - hook 15y ago
    Yep. You would need a) an iPhone app that you would use to place your order (it would send updated coordinates as you move around, and provide a perimeter within which you would have to stay) b) an army of quadcopters so that a subset of them could be charging while the others were making deliveries c) the quadcopters would have to be equipped with parachutes in case they malfunctioned so they wouldn't kill someone on the way down. d) The quadcopters would have to keep a persistent connection with the central server through wireless networks to keep in sync with your latest position and to send back their coordinates for you to see on your phone. e) there would have to be a mechanism in place to prevent mid-air collisions (buildings you could pre-encode, birds and other quadcopters you couldn`t) for bonus points, you generalize the whole thing and make it like an airbnb where people can exchange arbitrary goods and you just broker the deal and execute the deliveries for a fee that would be dynamically calculated based on distance and weight. DO IT. DO IT NOW.
DanielStraight 15y ago
I don't mean to be dense... but why would I want to order food on my phone? I'm reminded of Paul Graham's office hours video on TC. He asked one of the founders if his product solved the biggest problem in his life. I don't think there's a single person on Earth whose biggest problem in life is, "I have to tell the cashier what I want to eat before I can get fast food."
- MatthewPhillips 15y ago
  I don't think The Melt is doing this right, but it could be useful. Let's say you ordered it from an app that sends the restaurant your GPS coordinates at the time of the order. It then continues to send your coordinates as you travel to the restaurant. On their end their software computes an estimated arrival time allowing them to precisely time cooking to be fresh and ready for you to eat when you arrive.
  - DanielStraight 15y ago
    That makes a lot more sense. I still don't think I'd use it ("fast food isn't fast enough" is not a complaint I've ever made), but at least I can understand why someone would.
    - hugh3 15y ago
      "fast food isn't fast enough" is not a complaint I've ever made Really? I just went down to Cheeseboard Pizza to get a slice, but the line was too long, so I went somewhere else. If I could have ordered and paid while I walked and then just picked it up when I got there, that would have been sweet. Mind you, I'm pretty impatient.
      - blasdel 15y ago
        Just get their phone number and call ahead for takeout — it's pretty common here in Seattle even for places that don't deliver or even have a counter to order at. There are some terrific sit-down restaurants that have tons of excess kitchen capacity.
daimyoyo 15y ago
So when Sequoia is investing in a fast casual restaurant, can we say that the bubble is now officially in play? I understand wacky tech ideas no one understands, but a restaurant? Really?
- Apocryphon 15y ago
  Relax. They're not issuing stock yet.
RyanMcGreal 15y ago
I was thinking of starting a company that sells pet supplies to retail customers by way of a website. Think I'll be able to secure VC funding?
- danielharan 15y ago
  Too soon!
- GBond 15y ago
  Maybe if you incorporate a mascot, say... a sock puppet dog
- MatthewPhillips 15y ago
  If you've got a really good domain, yes.
- dchest 15y ago
  Only if it involves QR codes, NFC technology, and group buying.
- rmc 15y ago
  What's your social integration like?
pitdesi 15y ago
Any idea how much he paid for http://melt.com http://melt.com ? Is it just me or do there seem to be a lot of high-profile domain name purchases lately? (though I say that, only color and melt come to mind immediately although I'm sure there are some others... I know Pizza.com sold for $2.5m, which is ridiculous considering what they are doing with that name)
yesbabyyes 15y ago
Well, Chuck E Cheese was founded by Nolan Bushnell who before that founded Atari, so it might just work!
ansy 15y ago
He could at least deliver to arbitrary locations like "Ronnie" the underground cheese griller in NYC. http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/he_making_gouda_livin_CbUxrE7kGNTMUQch9afQlJ http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/he_making_gouda... http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/09/21/am-nycs-undreground-grilled-cheese/ http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/09/21/am... He was covered quite a bit last year for taking orders via text message and for being mildly subversive of the NYC health department.
Mrich30 15y ago
The article on one side and the serious comments on the other side have me really torn, please help me - this is satire right? Right???
signa11 15y ago
there is no tech bubble.
pwim 15y ago
I wonder if he was inspired by NYC's Underground Grilled Cheese: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1713815 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1713815

60 points by logicalmoron 15y ago

I know restaurant names are often re-used, but I wanted point out there is already an awesome gourmet grilled cheese restaurant called "Melt".[1] see http://www.meltbarandgrilled.com http://www.meltbarandgrilled.com [1] I guess he called his "The Melt" edit: first hit in Google for "The Melt" as well.

hugh3 15y ago
Fun exercise: find a Mongolian Barbecue that isn't called "Genghis Khan".
- brk 15y ago
  http://www.gomongo.com/ http://www.gomongo.com/ What do I win?
  - hugh3 15y ago
    You win a free meal at a delicious Mongolian Barbecue! It's called the Genghis Khan. Just go there and tell 'em I sent you.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- hnal943 15y ago
  http://www.flattopgrill.com/ http://www.flattopgrill.com/ you're right - that was fun!
jhamburger 15y ago
There was also a contestant on America's Next Great Restaurant with this idea: http://meltworks.com/ http://meltworks.com/

larrik 15y ago

Best. Headline. Ever.

logicalmoron 15y ago
Friend at D9 says they are damn delicious, too
larrik 15y ago
I don't understand the downvotes I'm getting. I really did enjoy the headline. It tells an awesome story in a tiny amount of space, and it makes me smile every time I read it. It's even got a main character, an interesting plot, and a twist ending!

wccrawford 15y ago

All the restaurant-related startups and announcements lately are an almost-daily reminder for me that when you have a good idea, jump on it. Ah well. I didn't have the contacts to pull it off, and it was only half an idea. :)

hugh3 15y ago
If you ask me, screw the grilled cheese restaurant. A grilled cheese van would be a licence to print money, second only to a cupcake van.
- wccrawford 15y ago
  I meant the other, customer-centric ideas expressed, but it's true. In fact, Orlando FL has quite a few food vans that occasionally all park in the same area for a mini food fair and attract a lot of people. They've become quite popular in the last year or 2. (I'm sure it happens other places, but Orlando is what I know.)
  - khafra 15y ago
    Tampa only has stationary taco busses, except the food truck on MacDill AFB, but Seattle has had the mobile variety for years.
- cpeterso 15y ago
  Will Y Combinator invest in my grilled cheese van? :)
  - hugh3 15y ago
    Depends. Do you have a cofounder? Are you aged between 20 and 25? Are you a technical founder who actually understands how to make a grilled cheese on your own, or are you just expecting to hire a grilled cheese expert? edit: Actually I think the ideal would be two technical founders with complementary skills. One knows how to make a grilled cheese, and the other one knows how to drive.
  - 15y ago

ctdonath 15y ago

Reminiscent of Starbucks' "Mobile Pour" joke ... which isn't that far from viable in a high-dollar high-traffic area. http://www.starbucks.com/blog/introducing-starbucks-mobile-pour http://www.starbucks.com/blog/introducing-starbucks-mobile-p...

hugh3 15y ago

Well, I do like grilled cheese, and I'm happy to have five more opening in the SF Bay Area (please be Berkeley, please be Berkeley) but... really? Sequoia Capital funds grilled cheese restaurants nowadays? I mean, apart from anything else it's going to make 'em look especially silly if it fails. I can see the annual report now. "This year we made $50 billion from five IPOs in the computer-aided drug discovery, computational nanotech, and metamaterials sectors. We also wrote off $10 million we invested in a grilled cheese chain."

ktsmith 15y ago
It's certainly possible that the deployment of five restaurants are just so that the developers have 100% control over the proving ground for their new software. It certainly sounds like this is a technology company to me anyway.
patio11 15y ago
"We also paid a trifling sum of money for an option on participation in whatever the next thing the Flip creator does after he gets the grilled cheese thing out of his system."
blacksmythe 15y ago
More realistically, "We made $2 billion from five IPOs in the computer-aided drug discovery, computational nanotech, and metamaterials sectors. We have 20 modestly profitable companies (including a grilled cheese chain), and we wrote off investments in over a hundred other companies."
pitdesi 15y ago
No Berkeley in the first four: Downtown, Lower Market, Bay Bridge, Palo Alto... http://themelt.com/locations http://themelt.com/locations

davidw 15y ago

I make a pretty mean sandwich, with oven-fresh bread, mozzarella, tomatoes, and prosciutto, with a bit of salt and pepper for seasoning. Anyone care to fund me? I'll name my shop "Panini Veri" (non quelle schifezze spacciate per panini italiani!)

hugh3 15y ago
Hmm, I think I'd need to try a sample before I invested...
- davidw 15y ago
  All you have to do is drop by Padova. Wine, as per the other comment below, is included.
fkcek 15y ago
Serve with a good glass of wine and it wouldn't be a bad idea.

powertower 15y ago

It's an interesting angle here... When someone wants to eat, they pay immediately by mobile in a quick and easy way (hopefully), and hence lock themselves into not being able to change their minds, or going somewhere else, or not going anywhere but home.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

hook 15y ago

It would be even cooler if a quadcopter delivered your grilled cheese sandwich within minutes no matter where you were. Why doesn't that exist yet?

bh42222 15y ago
You know... that sounds doable. Quadcopter are very fast and can go very far before they lose power. And a single sandwich is not a very heavy load. If you are outdoors and can give it your GPS coordinates, a single restaurant/quadcopter port, could serve a very large area.
- hugh3 15y ago
  Given advances in ballistics I think a grilled cheese cannon would work just as well, and be cheaper.
  - matwood 15y ago
    I would be blowing $$$/week ordering grilled cheeses for unsuspecting friends.
  - hartror 15y ago
    Advances? In ballistics? Who are you Leonardo Da Vinci?
- hook 15y ago
  Yep. You would need a) an iPhone app that you would use to place your order (it would send updated coordinates as you move around, and provide a perimeter within which you would have to stay) b) an army of quadcopters so that a subset of them could be charging while the others were making deliveries c) the quadcopters would have to be equipped with parachutes in case they malfunctioned so they wouldn't kill someone on the way down. d) The quadcopters would have to keep a persistent connection with the central server through wireless networks to keep in sync with your latest position and to send back their coordinates for you to see on your phone. e) there would have to be a mechanism in place to prevent mid-air collisions (buildings you could pre-encode, birds and other quadcopters you couldn`t) for bonus points, you generalize the whole thing and make it like an airbnb where people can exchange arbitrary goods and you just broker the deal and execute the deliveries for a fee that would be dynamically calculated based on distance and weight. DO IT. DO IT NOW.

DanielStraight 15y ago

I don't mean to be dense... but why would I want to order food on my phone? I'm reminded of Paul Graham's office hours video on TC. He asked one of the founders if his product solved the biggest problem in his life. I don't think there's a single person on Earth whose biggest problem in life is, "I have to tell the cashier what I want to eat before I can get fast food."

MatthewPhillips 15y ago
I don't think The Melt is doing this right, but it could be useful. Let's say you ordered it from an app that sends the restaurant your GPS coordinates at the time of the order. It then continues to send your coordinates as you travel to the restaurant. On their end their software computes an estimated arrival time allowing them to precisely time cooking to be fresh and ready for you to eat when you arrive.
- DanielStraight 15y ago
  That makes a lot more sense. I still don't think I'd use it ("fast food isn't fast enough" is not a complaint I've ever made), but at least I can understand why someone would.
  - hugh3 15y ago
    "fast food isn't fast enough" is not a complaint I've ever made Really? I just went down to Cheeseboard Pizza to get a slice, but the line was too long, so I went somewhere else. If I could have ordered and paid while I walked and then just picked it up when I got there, that would have been sweet. Mind you, I'm pretty impatient.
    - blasdel 15y ago
      Just get their phone number and call ahead for takeout — it's pretty common here in Seattle even for places that don't deliver or even have a counter to order at. There are some terrific sit-down restaurants that have tons of excess kitchen capacity.

daimyoyo 15y ago

So when Sequoia is investing in a fast casual restaurant, can we say that the bubble is now officially in play? I understand wacky tech ideas no one understands, but a restaurant? Really?

Apocryphon 15y ago
Relax. They're not issuing stock yet.

RyanMcGreal 15y ago

I was thinking of starting a company that sells pet supplies to retail customers by way of a website. Think I'll be able to secure VC funding?

danielharan 15y ago
Too soon!
GBond 15y ago
Maybe if you incorporate a mascot, say... a sock puppet dog
MatthewPhillips 15y ago
If you've got a really good domain, yes.
dchest 15y ago
Only if it involves QR codes, NFC technology, and group buying.
rmc 15y ago
What's your social integration like?

pitdesi 15y ago

Any idea how much he paid for http://melt.com http://melt.com ? Is it just me or do there seem to be a lot of high-profile domain name purchases lately? (though I say that, only color and melt come to mind immediately although I'm sure there are some others... I know Pizza.com sold for $2.5m, which is ridiculous considering what they are doing with that name)

yesbabyyes 15y ago

Well, Chuck E Cheese was founded by Nolan Bushnell who before that founded Atari, so it might just work!

ansy 15y ago

He could at least deliver to arbitrary locations like "Ronnie" the underground cheese griller in NYC. http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/he_making_gouda_livin_CbUxrE7kGNTMUQch9afQlJ http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/he_making_gouda... http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/09/21/am-nycs-undreground-grilled-cheese/ http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/09/21/am... He was covered quite a bit last year for taking orders via text message and for being mildly subversive of the NYC health department.

Mrich30 15y ago

The article on one side and the serious comments on the other side have me really torn, please help me - this is satire right? Right???

signa11 15y ago

there is no tech bubble.

pwim 15y ago

I wonder if he was inspired by NYC's Underground Grilled Cheese: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1713815 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1713815