What The World Does Not Need: An Internet-Friendly Grilled Cheese Sandwich
There are few things less likely to be improved by technology than the grilled cheese sandwich. That has not stopped Jonathan Kaplan, who has raised $10 million for a string of restaurants which will improve the beloved comfort food with the help of -- I bet you know where this is going -- the internet.
Kaplan, who previously led the company that invented the Flip video camera, is the man behind The Melt:
a new fast casual restaurant business that utilizes farm fresh products, all-natural ingredients and innovative cooking technology to create and deliver high-quality food at affordable prices.Frying pan. Butter. Bread. Cheese. Innovative cooking technology? In an emergency you can use a stick instead of the frying pan. There is nothing in the recipe that has not been available since humanity first made something edible out of curdled milk.
Where useless innovation threatens to intrude
But cooking is not the only place where useless innovation threatens to intrude. What makes this a web-exclusive is in the ordering. It's not just that you can order !!!online!!!, it's that when you do you will receive a QR code which you can then redeem at any Melt restaurant and your order will be available in minutes!!!
And this shortens the time from just walking in and ordering ... how? Maybe it's different in the Bay Area where the chain already has four eateries -- I'm sure you're shocked to learn it's from San Francisco -- but in the rest of the nation minutes is exactly how long it takes to make a grilled cheese. Why do you thing we parents love making them? In two-and-a-half minutes the kid's mouth is too full to talk with. We hope.
God bless the person at VentureBeat who got stuck writing about this and managed to do so with a straight face. I know I couldn't have:
It sounds like Kaplan is really trying to invent a new model for the restaurant business, one that uses mobile technology for an experience that's fast and flexible without sacrificing quality. There are ambitious expansion plans, too.Sequoia Capital is funding the venture. Despite this, the company has received nice write ups in the Wall Street Journal. Well, everyone's entitled to a whiff now and then.
QR codes fascinate me. I have no idea why companies are so in love with them. It certainly isn't because they solve a problem for customers. I live near MIT and I've never seen anyone actually use them. Yet they continue to proliferate. Go figure.
Nothing makes me more nervous than companies who want to "update" something that is already a masterpiece. One day I took my then eight-year-old son to The Parker House in Boston for some Boston Cream Pie. Seemed like a great idea, as after all this was the place where it was invented. We sit down and I order him a $10 slice. What he got was a frou-frou nightmare of what some foodie thought the Boston Creme Pie should be. We left quickly and headed for Dunkin' Donuts. Happiness reigned.
They can have my grilled cheese sandwich when they pry it out of my cold, dead hands.
Picture: WikiMedia Commons
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