Terry Miller was sitting on a beach in Aruba with his wife and young son when an idea hit him. A year later he’s getting ready to launch a dining app that he says will completely change the industry.
Diners will use eleat to order and pay for carry-out, delivery and tableside dining on their mobile device. The restaurants can choose to offer all of the options or just a few. The consumer pays 99 cents per transaction and the restaurant pays eleat a credit card fee. Terry (right), who left his full-time job as COO of Visionary Integration Professionals' government practice last year, says eleat’s unique because it offers more options in one app—like tableside ordering and payment. It also has more in-depth information about menus for people with allergies.
Terry and his three partners hired six full-time developers, who have been working on the app for the past year. It’s run in the seven figures to develop. One feature that’s been attractive to restaurants is having the option to use it as a web app or integrating it within their existing point-of-sale systems. They’re also saving the millions of dollars typically spent in developing their own app.
Once it launches next week in the DC area, it will have 12 to 15 restaurants participating, including Asia DC, Chaplin’s, Lost Society (above) and Policy. But Terry says the number of restaurants, including chains and hospitality companies, will grow quickly in the region and then expand to other major metro hubs. Terry is inspired by the fact that over half of surveyed diners want to order their food on their mobile devices. Millennials are even more anxious for features that give them more choice, control and convenience. The company is funded by its founders, but Terry says he’ll seek a venture round following the DC launch.
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