Ben Leventhal would rather tell you where to sit at a restaurant than what to order. “If you go to Balthazar, sit on table 62,” he says, sipping his tequila. “It’s on the left side of the room and you’ll get the best views.”
Over the last two decades, the fortysomething New Yorker has been instrumental to the rise of foodie culture. First he told us where to eat, launching news site Eater in 2005—since acquired by Vox Media. Then he helped us to reserve tables, cofounding Resy in 2014, which catalyzed “reservation culture” by funneling the availability of more than 16,000 restaurants into one app. Today, he is immersed in his latest restaurant tech venture: Blackbird Labs, a shared loyalty program for eateries, where diners receive points in the form of crypto tokens.
