Zest, the restaurant discovery app that launched earlier this year, has released a new AI-powered “restaurant concierge” accessible by text message, allowing users to get personalised recommendations and book tables in a text conversation.
The feature, announced on Thursday, works by texting the concierge at (212) 470-6067. It can also be added to group chats, where it blends everyone’s tastes to suggest restaurants, offer an in-thread voting feature, and book a table without leaving the conversation. The move reflects a broader industry shift toward conversational AI agents, which are taking on tasks that previously required a separate mobile app.
The startup, founded in November 2024 with $1.8 million in pre-seed backing from Alexis Ohanian’s 776 and Steve Jang’s Kindred Ventures, differentiates itself by linking to users’ credit cards through financial services company Plaid to track where they eat. Zest says it looks only at food and drink transactions to build a personalised map and list of recommendations.
“The agent is the product now,” said Zest founder and CEO Mario Gomez-Hall. “You text it, and it answers from your own history and your friends’. It doesn’t need weeks of conversation to learn you because it starts from where you’ve actually been.”
The AI can make suggestions based on cuisine, craving, occasion, dietary restrictions, or neighbourhood, and answer questions about a restaurant such as how busy it may be or whether it offers Wi-Fi. It can also send menus. In tests by TechCrunch, the AI worked “fairly well”, matching suggestions to the user’s tastes and specific conditions like time of day, party size and location.
Zest started testing the concierge last month but waited to add booking capabilities through OpenTable, Resy and SevenRooms before launching. Over time, the startup is considering expanding beyond restaurants to offer recommendations for businesses, shopping and more.
“Booking and ordering are the first revenue lines,” Gomez-Hall said. “Zest books your table through OpenTable or Resy today, with food ordering coming, and there are transactions there to participate in. The reason that gets interesting is that Zest learns your taste faster than a general assistant does, because it starts from where you’ve actually been instead of asking you questions. That’s worth something well beyond dinner.”
Analysis
Why This Matters
- Zest’s shift to a text-based AI agent signals a possible move away from mobile apps as the primary interface for restaurant discovery and booking.
- For users, the feature reduces friction: recommendations and reservations happen in a familiar text conversation, even in group chats.
- The use of credit-card transaction data to personalise suggestions raises privacy questions about how food-spending data is stored and shared.
Background
Zest was founded in November 2024 and raised $1.8 million in pre-seed funding from venture investors including Alexis Ohanian and Steve Jang. Its core feature is linking to users’ credit cards via Plaid to track dining history, enabling personalised restaurant recommendations without requiring users to rate or log meals manually.
Key Perspectives
- Mario Gomez-Hall (Zest founder and CEO): Says the AI acts as a product, learning users’ tastes from their actual dining history rather than by asking questions, and sees transactions from bookings and orders as a revenue opportunity.
- TechCrunch: Characterises the launch as part of a broader shift to conversational AI agents taking over tasks from mobile apps, and reports the AI performed “fairly well” in its tests.
What to Watch
- Whether Zest expands beyond restaurants to other categories such as shopping and business recommendations, as the company has indicated.
- How the feature drives user growth and revenue from booking and ordering transactions.
- Any regulatory or privacy developments around the use of credit-card transaction data for personalisation.
Checked
12 claims in this story checked against 1 source: 11 supported.
Show each claim
- SupportedZest has launched an AI concierge that books restaurant tables by text message.AI News & Artificial Intelligence | TechCrunch: “On Thursday, the startup introduced a new feature: a personal AI-powered “restaurant concierge” that lives in your text messages”
- SupportedThe new feature lets users text for recommendations and reservations and join group chats to coordinate outings.AI News & Artificial Intelligence | TechCrunch: “Zest can be dropped into a group chat, where it can blend everyone’s tastes to find places the whole group will love.”
- SupportedZest founder and CEO Mario Gomez-Hall said, “The agent is the product now.”AI News & Artificial Intelligence | TechCrunch: ““The agent is the product now,” explains Zest founder and CEO Mario Gomez-Hall.”
- SupportedGomez-Hall said the agent answers from a user’s history and friends’ history and does not need weeks of conversation to learn them.AI News & Artificial Intelligence | TechCrunch: ““You text it, and it answers from your own history and your friends’. It doesn’t need weeks of conversation to learn you because it starts from where you’ve actually been,” he said.”
- SupportedGomez-Hall said booking and ordering are Zest’s first revenue lines, and that the service learns a user’s taste faster than a general assistant.AI News & Artificial Intelligence | TechCrunch: ““Booking and ordering are the first revenue lines. Zest books your table through OpenTable or Resy today, with food ordering coming, and there are transactions there to participate in,” said Gomez-Hall.”
- SupportedZest introduced the feature on Thursday.AI News & Artificial Intelligence | TechCrunch: “On Thursday, the startup introduced a new feature”
- SupportedUsers can text the concierge at (212) 470-6067.AI News & Artificial Intelligence | TechCrunch: “To work, users will text the Zest concierge at (212) 470-6067.”
- SupportedIn group chats, Zest can combine participants’ tastes, offer in-thread voting and book a table without leaving the conversation.AI News & Artificial Intelligence | TechCrunch: “Here, it can also settle indecision with an in-thread voting feature and then can book a table for the group without leaving the conversation.”
- SupportedZest was founded in November 2024 with $1.8 million in pre-seed backing from Alexis Ohanian’s 776 and Steve Jang’s Kindred Ventures.AI News & Artificial Intelligence | TechCrunch: “Originally founded in November 2024, with $1.8 million in pre-seed backing from Alexis Ohanian at 776 and Steve Jang at Kindred Ventures”
- SupportedZest links users’ credit cards through Plaid to track where they eat.AI News & Artificial Intelligence | TechCrunch: “The credit card data used by Zest’s app is imported via the financial services company Plaid”
- SupportedZest says it uses only food and drink transactions to build its personalized map and recommendation lists.AI News & Artificial Intelligence | TechCrunch: “Zest says it focuses only on those transactions in the food and drink categories when making its personalized map and lists.”
- Partly supportedTechCrunch’s tests found that the AI matched suggestions to the user’s tastes and conditions such as time of day, party size and location.AI News & Artificial Intelligence | TechCrunch: “In TechCrunch’s tests, the AI worked fairly well, offering a list of suggestions for new places matched to our tastes that also fit particular conditions, like time of day, party size, location, and other factors.”
