Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Key Takeaways
- Ben Leventhal believes restaurants are entering a new era where brand matters as much as the food itself.
- Operators who invest in storytelling and loyalty will be better positioned to build lasting restaurants.
- His philosophy is that restaurant technology should remove friction and not distract from hospitality itself.
The restaurant business has spent years searching for its next competitive advantage.
Ben Leventhal believes the biggest opportunity isn’t technology alone. It’s building brands people genuinely want to be part of.
As founder and CEO of Blackbird, Leventhal is helping restaurants strengthen loyalty and customer relationships. Before launching Blackbird, he co-founded Eater and Resy, two companies that changed how people discover restaurants and book reservations. Blackbird is a membership and payment platform designed for restaurants and diners.
After helping shape the industry from multiple angles, Leventhal believes restaurants are entering a new chapter.
“I think this is going to be seen as a golden age for restaurants, where they take control of profitability in a way we haven’t seen in a long time.”
That optimism starts with consumers.
“The great news and the tailwind on all this is we see the consumer appetite for restaurants is at all-time highs,” Leventhal says. “The enthusiasm, online, in person, is through the roof and restaurateurs are starting to figure out how to harness that into real profitability.”
For Leventhal, the restaurants finding the most success are no longer competing on food alone.
“If you look at how really savvy operators are operating today, they’re leading with brand,” he says. “They’re selling things other than food on a plate. They’re telling stories in new ways, and consumers are responding.”
While Blackbird is focused on helping restaurants build stronger loyalty and customer relationships, Leventhal believes the technology itself isn’t the differentiator. Instead, operators should focus on creating brands that people remember and experiences that keep guests coming back. As new tools continue to reshape hospitality, he believes they should make restaurants better, not more complicated.
“Restaurateurs don’t have to understand blockchain,” Leventhal says. “They just have to have at their disposal tools that make their business better.”
We fall to get back up
Every founder has a story about getting it wrong. For Leventhal, one of the biggest lessons came during the first year of Resy.
The reservation platform launched with a simple pitch: restaurants could make more money by selling their most in-demand tables. Operators had a different idea.
“The first year of Resy we got it wrong,” Leventhal says. “We kept saying to restaurants, ‘You’re going to make more money if you just sell your tables.’ And they kept saying to us, ‘We don’t want to sell our tables.’”
Instead of forcing the issue, Leventhal listened. That experience reshaped Resy and continues to influence how he approaches Blackbird today. Whether he’s building restaurant technology or launching a new company, he believes founders have to stay willing to adapt.
“You make mistakes all the time,” he said. “If you’re not making mistakes, you’re probably not in the end going to get it right.”
That same philosophy shapes how Leventhal thinks about restaurant storytelling. New platforms, AI tools and emerging technology will continue to change how restaurants reach customers, but he believes the fundamentals remain the same.
“The future of food media is always about storytelling,” Leventhal said. “I’ve always believed if you tell good stories, you’re going to be successful when it comes to content.”
For Leventhal, that’s the thread connecting every chapter of his career. From Eater to Resy and now Blackbird, the goal has never been technology for technology’s sake. It’s helping restaurants build stronger relationships with the people they serve. Businesses that listen to their customers, tell authentic stories and continue to adapt are the ones that earn lasting loyalty.
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