The Savored Blog

Three years ago, I set out with my co-founder, Dan Leahy, to start a company that would inspire restaurant owners to embrace technology in new ways. A company that would show these small business owners that technology can benefit their bottom line while enhancing the experience of their diners. To date, we have partnered with over 1,000 of the nation’s leading restaurants in this effort, and we are honored to service these restaurateurs who work tirelessly every day to make dining a fun, affordable and unforgettable experience.

The value that we have created in the restaurant industry is clear. Just ask any one of the many restaurateurs that has seen their bottom line increase by 50% since joining Savored about the impact we are having. Or ask any of the many diners who now celebrates out with friends and family more often. It is with these people in mind that we are eager to introduce Savored to a larger audience. And for that reason, I could not be more proud to announce today that Savored has been acquired by Groupon.

Together, Groupon and Savored will be able to deliver even more exceptional dining experiences to consumers while continuing to focus on restaurant profitability. The Savored product will remain sophisticated and elegant, enabling diners to make reservations at the very best restaurants and receive discounts of up to 40% seamlessly taken off their bill. Our commitment to style remains unwavering. Our innovative and unique dynamic pricing model will remain the crux of our value proposition, and the entire team at both Groupon and Savored cannot wait to deliver this value to even more diners and restaurants alike.

There are too many people that deserve recognition for building Savored to where it is today to do true justice in this post, but here’s a start: to every diner who trusted Savored enough to make a reservation and dine, to every restaurant who believed in our vision and signed up for the ride, to the Savored team that still wakes up every morning reading customer comments and goes to bed at night thinking about the number of covers we seated that day, to our investors who backed us through good times and bad, and most importantly, to my co-founder Dan, and early employees Julien Vernet and Chris Watson without whom Savored would not have been born, I thank you all very much for your contributions and support.

Now we get back to work – we hope you’ll take another bite and join us for the journey!

Last night, the Savored team anxiously awaited the roll out of a number of exciting changes that we’ve been working on tirelessly over the past few months. The anticipation paralleled nearly one year ago, when our team of twenty five braved a Friday night together until 5 AM to re-launch VillageVines as Savored.  While the launch of these initiatives produced a similar feeling in a lot of ways, the pride of this launch stems from a refocused effort to go back to the basics of what makes Savored unique and, at least in our eyes, positioned to change the restaurant industry forever.

When my co-founder, Dan Leahy, and I started Savored back in early 2010 (VillageVines at the time), the thought of introducing the dynamic pricing model of the airline and hotel industries to restaurants was incredibly promising. Several prominent companies had succeeded in those industries (Priceline, Hotels.com, Orbitz, etc.) and yet no player provided similar yield management solutions in the restaurant space.

We achieved significant early success with this model, generating over $10 million of gross billings in our first year. But we got swept up in the deal craze and admittedly lost our focus. All of a sudden everyone was offering restaurant deals and our differentiation was unclear.

With the changes we are rolling out today, we are going back to our core focus of introducing mechanisms to effectively match supply and demand in the restaurant industry. Restaurants care about “putting butts in seats,” and without a smart yield management solution like Savored, they are incapable of knowing what incentives are needed and when to attract diners. Consumers benefit from the fact that restaurants now have a platform on which they can profitably optimize prices when they have excess tables, giving diners access to incentives of up to 40% off their entire bill during less busy hours and access to tables or special experiences during prime times.

As such, we are incredibly proud to announce the following changes to our service, effective today:

-          We are introducing dynamic price optimization in which restaurant incentives will vary above and below the current 30% level depending on consumer demand. This has led to a considerable increase in new inventory on our service, particularly during prime times (weekends and 7pm-8:30pm) and is entirely incremental to our current 30% off inventory.

-          After testing numerous pricing models, we have decided to eliminate the consumer reservation fee, making Savored entirely free for consumers to use. In conjunction with this move, we have introduced a service fee for restaurants using the Savored platform.

-          We now support mobile use via the launch of our iPhone and Android mobile apps. You can download the iPhone app here and the Android app here.

Everything we’re introducing today marks our commitment to get back to a focus on creating an incredible user experience that helps diners get the best possible pricing at great restaurants while enabling restaurants to optimize their prices to drive demand. I am proud to say that this is just the beginning and that over the next several months we will continue to roll out new products focused on achieving this goal, while enhancing dining experiences for our members and helping our restaurants gain more exposure and increased profits all across the United States.

From Savored HQ to YOU!

Savored members,

We’re thrilled to welcome you to the official Savored blog. This site is dedicated to letting you in on more than just insider prices; here we strive to share our own dining experiences with you as well as to keep you posted on what’s new with our team and our greater business. So without further ado, consider this your official invitation to get in the know! Check back regularly for restaurant reviews, weekly recaps of new destinations and other musings from within the walls of our exciting start-up.

We hope you’ll accept our invitation to join us as we guide you on countless adventures in unforgettable dining!

Sincerely,

Your Savored Team