Corporate catering start-up Eat Club expands to L.A.
One of the most common perks in the tech world is catered lunches. Start-up founders say it’s a way to keep employees happy and productive – and they typically foot the bill.
Palo Alto start-up Eat Club has been serving that demand since 2010 and now delivers 10,000 meals a day to corporate heavyweights such as Netflix, Tesla and Cisco.
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FOR THE RECORD
An earlier version of this post incorrectly said there were five restaurants partnered with Eat Club in the L.A. area. There are 30.
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On Thursday, the company expanded its service beyond the Bay Area to Los Angeles, hoping to tap the region’s growing tech scene.
Early adopters during Eat Club’s beta testing phase include Santa Monica’s DogVacay and TrueCar.
Eat Club has raised $16.5 million in three rounds of funding.
To be sure, the food delivery space is crowded with competition, be it from GrubHub, the publically traded Chicago online takeout company; or Venice’s ChowNow, an online ordering and marketing platform for restaurants.
Eat Club claims it’s the only company dedicated to corporate catering. It makes its margins by partnering with dedicated restaurants and ordering select menu items at bulk rates. Restaurants like it because it can put together meals during the calm before lunch service, generating revenue that didn’t exist before.
On Thursday, menu offerings included steak Nicoise salad ($10.95), vegan butternut squash lasagna ($11.95) and chicken kebab plates ($12.95).
An Eat Club delivery team (W2 employees, if you were wondering) brings the food on time 99% of the time, the company said.
Companies that take delivery from Eat Club provide accounts for employees to order off the start-up’s app or website. Meals can be ordered as early as a week in advance or as late as 10 a.m. for same-day service.
There are 30 restaurants on Eat Club’s L.A. area roster, including Bay Cities Deli, Gracias Madre, Cafe Gratitude, LA Fundamental and Fat Sal’s.
Twitter: @dhpierson
