I’ve got restaurant funding on the brain after reporting an exclusive about InKind, the alt financing platform for restaurants that announced another $414 million of investment a week ago. It’s not venture capital or equity investment; the funds are earmarked to support thousands of restaurants via InKind’s model of offering a lump-sum investment in exchange for restaurant credits. (Read more in my coverage for Fast Company.)
Last week, one of my San Francisco favorites announced an alt funding platform of its own. Pasta Supply Co., helmed by chef Anthony Strong, announced plans to open its third pasta shop-slash-restaurant, selling and serving seriously great pasta — bucatini, egg malfaldine, chicken-prosciutto tortelli — in local neighborhoods.
To raise money to build out the space, an under 1,000-square-foot former Peet’s Coffee shop in Cole Valley near the Haight, Strong instituted a crowdfunding campaign: area “investors” who pay $550 upfront get free pasta — a package that’ll feed two adults, at least — every week for the next year. Those who give $4,000 get pasta for life. (Important fine print: “Non-transferrable, even in the event of mortal termination.”) A few hours in, the campaign was already a quarter of the way to Strong’s initial funding goal.
Pasta Supply Co. previously ran crowdfunding campaigns using Kickstarter. Now, with a following of very satisfied customers (this writer and her butter-noodle obsessed children included), Strong decided to circumvent platform fees and go direct. People sign up for the pasta plans via the store’s Square storefront. (This also makes the funding transactional, clarifying everyone’s role. “We’ve had some ick moments over the years,” Strong told me.)
To manage all the subscriptions, Strong vibe-coded a customer tracker using Claude Code. Patrons are photographed when picking up their first pasta order and get one “skipsie” per month. The tracker pulls data from the point of sale system, tracking trends over time — including a particularly San Francisco phenom:
“We can see how many people skipped Burning Man week,” Strong said.
UPDATE:
A year after announcing an extended partnership, Resy and Toast are finally rolling out a huge part of the deal’s promise: digital chits. That means diner info from Resy’s guest book — guest notes, visit history, special occasions — will show up on Toast screens for servers.
There’s more restaurant industry news of note (including some, uh, concerning agentic AI behavior) below for paid subscribers.
ICYMI:
Q&A: SevenRooms' Joel Montaniel
I am confident that at the time of its debut, the co-founders of SevenRooms did not expect to one day be acquired by a delivery app. SevenRooms launched in 2011, a couple years before its eventual acquirer, DoorDash, started taking orders for delivery. The restaurant technology industry’s evolution has surprised a lot of us. It worked out particularly well for SevenRooms.
