Zest
Pre-Seed
Zest uses transaction data and AI to recommend restaurants based on real dining habits.
Founded
2024Zest uses transaction data and AI to recommend restaurants based on real dining habits.
Zest offers an AI-powered restaurant discovery app that imports credit card transactions via Plaid to build personal dining maps. The platform leverages over 80 million reviews and verified dining spend data to generate personalized recommendations. Users can follow friends and creators for dining suggestions, and the app includes features like freeform notes about restaurants and a "Fresh Picks" discovery feed.
The app is available on iOS and has attracted over 100,000 visits since its public launch.
The restaurant discovery market includes established players like Yelp, Google Maps, and OpenTable, but Zest targets a gap by focusing on verified dining behavior and social curation. The company plans to expand beyond restaurants to curate other city hotspots, reflecting its "zest for life" brand positioning.
Consumer comfort with financial data sharing has improved through services like Venmo and Apple Find My Friends, creating favorable conditions for Zest's transaction-based model. The team's experience in social network design from prior ventures Cymbal and Saturn positions them to build engaged user communities around taste and discovery.
Zest differentiates itself from other restaurant discovery apps by using verified transaction data rather than subjective reviews or social posturing. By linking to users' credit cards through Plaid, the app surfaces authentic dining habits and frequented spots, including neighborhood hidden gems.
The AI-powered recommendation engine improves as it learns from real spending patterns, making suggestions more relevant than traditional rating-based platforms. The social follow feature allows users to discover places trusted by friends and curated tastemakers.