Feastly Company Visit

On Tuesday, August 16, we met with Noah Karesh, co-founder of Feastly.  I did my individual project on a Feastly experience in Washington DC so I was really looking forward to this company visit. 

Feastly is a meal sharing company that was started and piloted in Washington DC in 2012 and officially launched in San Francisco in 2013.  The idea came about when Noah, the co-founder, and his girlfriend were traveling in Guatemala looking for authentic, local cuisine.  They could not find what they were looking for until a young, local avocado farmer invited them to his mother’s house for an authentic Guatemalan home cooked meal.  Feastly has hosted 50,000 meals, has 8,000 chefs on the platform, and most recently launched in Los Angeles, California.

Noah was extremely charismatic and spent a lot of time explaining how Feastly came to be and the challenges they are currently facing.  He also answered our many questions very openly and honestly.  It was fascinating to hear how the chef on-boarding process worked and what kinds of methods Feastly is using to recruit chefs in new cities.  The company is unique in that they have two different customer categories: chefs, and diners.  They provide a lot of services to the chefs including insurance and basic business tools as well as spaces to host their events.  Noah explained that there are three reasons why chefs come to Feastly: passion, the ability to make money, and to build their brand.  It was great to hear how much emphasis was put on the importance of the chefs and how Feastly is there to help them build their brand to launch their careers.