Grilled-cheese-and-soup specialist The Melt is playing off its founder’s tech background with cutting-edge features in the front- and back-of-the-house.
Jonathan Kaplan, who developed the Flip video camera, opened the inaugural location of his new concept in San Francisco under his company, Fish Six Restaurant Corp.
Kaplan said The Melt is “blending” old favorites with new technologies to offer appealing combinations “in an enjoyable quick-service environment.”
The Melt’s customers soon will have the option to order ahead and pay using a mobile application on their smartphones that issues them a unique Quick Response, or QR, barcode, Fish Six officials said. And when customers arrive at the restaurant, they will be able to skip the service line by using a provided scanner to input the QR code into the production system for faster assembly and delivery.
Once additional locations open, customers will be able to pre-order and pay and generate a QR code on their smartphones, and then redeem their order at any Melt outlet.
Two other San Francisco locations, as well as a third in nearby Palo Alto, Calif., are now in development and scheduled to open by the end of the year as part of an aggressive growth strategy, Fish Six officials said. They were not available at press time to clarify if that growth will come through franchising or company-store development, or a combination of the two.
Venture capital firm Sequoia Capital is one of the concept’s backers.
Michael Moritz of Sequoia Capital explains why the company decided to invest in The Melt; story continues on page 2
