Interview with Danil Zatologin  – 52Lunch App

Transcript of the interview

Hello, I’m sitting here with Danil from five2lunch. We work with them on some interesting product. Maybe, Danil, you can introduce your product. What is it about?

Hi there. Thank you for your time. Actually, we`ve launched five2lunch application. This application helps tourists and expats find the locals through a unique restaurant experience.

It works in Latvia, in Riga, and it works in a very simple way. Like you can download application.

Then you see the nearest restaurant, you see an open table and the main feature is that you see who is already at the table, the profile of these people and you can start to chat with them.

You can see what discounts restaurants can give you. If you visit, you can join a table. So it’s like a social dating through a restaurant experience.

It`s like social media plus real experience. You basically take people from a virtual world to the real world.

Yeah. Kind of a restaraunt Tinder. And it works in Riga. We work with four restaurants in Riga. And I suppose we will expand our network up to ten restaurants and then we will go to such countries like Estonia, Poland, Czech Republic, Germany etc.

How did you get this idea? How did it all start?

A few years ago I was in the United States and I found that people liked to talk. And usually I visited such restaurants like a steakhouse at medium price.

And usually my team and I sit at a joint table. When you sit, you would start to chatter in a few seconds. You start to talk with the Americans and they like to talk.

If your eyes meet, they start to talk with you about everything. About football. About I don’t know…

Was it in California? Or were was it exactly?

Yeah, it was in California.

When the investors call, they like to talk a lot (laughing).

We decided to launch such things for you to see who is already at a joint table. And for the Americans it’s very important.

I like to visit four restaurants near my office. And I would like to see who is at the table, because I wouldn’t like to waste my day. I see two pretty girls or an interesting man or something like this so I can decide it before visiting were I will sit and where I will be.

Do you see any future in that? I mean, what are your future plans right now? What are you trying to achieve?

Actually, due to the coronavirus I see that we will change a little our approach to restaurants. So in April, we will start to work with our key restaurants in Riga like a joint delivery system.

I mean, today, when our restaurant is an open slot, it looks like an open table. Before it was like that: guys, we will see you at 5 p.m. at a table for six people.

And in April it will be like this: guys, by 5 p.m. we can prepare such a menu for six people and it will be like a sharing delivery through our application during the coronavirus time. And then we will change this approach.

We will acquire additional customers. We will acquire additional downloads. And so we can get the money from such a thing. I guess you understand.

It’s like a sharing delivery with the schedule. it is a very good approach for restaurants because you can manage your kitchen. By 2 or 3 p.m. we have to prepare 10 soups, for example.

And people are already buying such things. So it will be like a slot.