Top Restaurant Marketers Q&A: Tock’s Nick Kokonas
Photo Caption: A dish at Cafe Spiagga, one of Tock's restaurant clients. Tock
Skift Take
Give Nick Kokonas access to a Medium account and a nice glass of wine tonight, and he'll give you nationwide brand awareness tomorrow.
Love him or not, Nick Kokonas knows how to generate some headlines. The CEO and founder of restaurant tech platform Tock has built a reputation for being the person who will say what he wants, when he wants, especially if it involves Tock or any of the restaurants that he co-owns with famed chef Grant Achatz.
It was fitting that on the morning that Kokonas spoke with Skift Table in late January, he was in the middle of juggling a flood of incoming press requests related to a tweet he had sent out two days prior inviting the Clemson Tigers football team, winners of the 2019 College Football Playoff National Championship, to Alinea to experience a real celebratory dinner after they were served McDonald's and Wendy's at the customary White House reception.
That kind of attention is just another week for Kokonas. Whether it's publicly calling OpenTable out for its business practices or stirring up controversy with a celebrity chef, Kokonas sees the value in becoming part of the news cy
