☕️ 😂 🍝
Tweet Emojis at Google for Restaurant Recs
You may have thought emojis were one of those millennial phenomena ne’er to make it’s way down the figurative technological chain to we lay folk who still like good ol’ fashioned print. Not the case. Google is willing to bet that the international search-hungry population is, in fact, so picto-happy that they will use our favorite little smiley faces and piles of poop to seek out restaurant recommendations (okay, likely the former, not the latter). As Eater reports, there are 21 million tweets sent every hour to Google and 600,000 of them contain at least one emoji — that’s a lot of winkeys. “A staggering 74 percent of people in the U.S. regularly use emojis, sending an average of 96 per day,” the search behemoth’s rep tells Eater. It’s okay. You know who you are.
RHYTHM OF FOOD
Thanks Again, Google: Search Patterns Reveal Cultural Food Interests
While, yes, kale was so very 2011. The Google News Lab alongside Truth & Beauty have taken it upon themselves to explore what their mountains of data from our recipe, dietary, restaurant, and other food-related searches say about our culinary curiosities. Take your lunch break and nerd out on their incredibly cool infographic that reveals the rhythms of food, i.e. that — spoiler alert! — hot chocolate searches spike in December and that gefilte fish hits a yearlong high some day around Passover. Admittedly, this may be one of instances in which the data has a way of revealing insights that we may have had ourselves, gathered around a fire grasping pumpkin spice lattes, but either way, we’re grateful Google took the time to confirm our hunches. Enjoy.
PIZZABUCKS
Some Starbucks Will Soon Serve Pizza
Speaking of pumpkin spice lattes, it was only a matter of time before the ubiquitous coffee giant coopted more of Italian culture than the humble espresso. Cappuccino. Latte. Cortado. Okay, that’s Spanish. As announced at the company’s biennial investor conference in Manhattan on December 7th, Starbucks will soon open standalone bakeries in Seattle, New York City, and Chicago under the name “Princi” by the end of next year. CEO Howard Schultz apparently stumbled upon the bakeries of a man named Rocco Princi in his travels troving for the next great flat white and the company invested in the man’s foccacia earlier this year. Cheese + coffee though… an unlikely pairing. Let’s hope we’re taking pizza rossa, if you know what we mean.
WHAT’S UP, RESY?
Wine ‘n Dine Partners with Resy in NYC
In a partnership rather reminiscent of OpenTable’s 2013 acquisition of Foodspotting, Resy has recently announced that it has cozied up to Wine n Dine (no apostrophe — don’t worry, throws us too), the “food-centric social discovery app that pinpoints the best restaurants and dishes around the world,” as explained by Resy’s PR. Clearly this is a play to deepen consumer adoption for the reservation booking system that, while a darling of the restaurant community’s 1% (Union Square Café reopened on Resy, rather than OpenTable, this fall), has struggled to gain market share on the diner-side (OpenTable reports upwards of 20 million seated diners per month.) By seamlessly joining the flow of Wine n Dine users through Resy, folks can now make reservations within the app without jumping back and forth, so it’s a simple browse for notable rigatoni and book a table. The national rollout is planned for coming months, with global rollout to follow soon after.
Digestifs:
- If the morning New York Times wasn’t already depressing enough for ya, get this.
- Behold the Tesla of baking equipment. Thank you, Kitchen-Aid. It’s about time we didn’t have to deal with those cords.
- For the techy chefy if your lifey: the ultimate food tech gift guide.
