Most Innovative (again)

My dining-centric contribution to Fast Company's annual list is here.

A thing about print magazines is that they often decide on content over six months before it runs. It’s just the nature of magazine production and huge projects — for example, Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies list, launched today, which I worked on for months. The list spans (many) industries, but my contribution is limited to 10 strong restaurant industry contenders, including one that can’t seem to find its way out of the news cycle: Wonder.

My FC editors have been interested in Wonder for some time, and after we decided to shortlist the company months ago, it kept… doing unexpected things.

Last week, Wonder surprised us again by acquiring a media company called Tastemade for a reported $90 million, just a couple of months after buying delivery service Grubhub for $650 mil. When I dashed off last week’s edition of Expedite, 30 minutes before a long-planned dinner on [what I’m trying to make] a vacation, I didn’t have time to second-guess the sub-heading I gave the story: If a billionaire manages to save a delivery company and a media company in 2025, he deserves our respect.

I stand by it. Wonder, led by successful serial entrepreneur Marc Lore, is using huge amounts of capital (over $1.5 billion, reportedly) to assemble a “mealtime superapp” with the pieces of companies that couldn’t quite stand alone — or, at least make more sense standing together.

(Or, as a longtime Expedite reader clocked, “It’s like they are trying to stitch together Grab,” referring to the Singapore-based “everything app.”)

I get asked what I think about Wonder a lot, especially from people outside of New York. Personal view aside, it’s okay to be skeptical of a restaurant-industry outsider who wants to disrupt dinner. Enough of them have come and gone or forever changed the way the business works, each one hoping to capitalize both on our basic need to eat and our at times impractical¹ love of dining.

When putting this year’s MIC list together, I thought a lot about how restaurants have changed thanks to technology (ex: Bite² and Blackbird) and how they might be best positioned, operationally, to embrace coming success (Salad and Go).

I also — perhaps selfishly — tossed in a few companies that represent the future that I think we want. Cava, the fast-casual superstar that’s bullish on supporting dining in as others in the category reduce their footprints, and Oyster Master Guild, a small but mighty effort to build up a very particular, and special, ingredient³.

Mostly, I thought a lot about what “innovation” in restaurants means in 2025. We don’t need a category disruptor, and there’s no real need to fundamentally change restaurants, because they’re already great. Instead, I’m hopeful today’s innovative ideas help restaurants evolve and exist in a changing and uncertain world.

I’m still OOO, but I (and Expedite) will be back to normal next week.

1. As in: sometimes a dining experience is not optimized to the nth degree, and that is okay!

2. Disclosure: I cohost an industry podcast sponsored by Bite and cohosted by its CEO; I am compensated for my time with full editorial autonomy.

3. Just thinking about the half-dozen Utah Beach oysters I enjoyed at dinner last night, vive la France!