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This will be

Tastecard has got to be a better deal for the restaurants. Why should any restaurants want to start paying Big Dish - a relatively new start-up with only 50,000 downloads of the App - £250 a month. When diners arrive from Tastecard the restaurants don't have to pay anything. They also do not have to get involved in daily, weekly, monthly payments to Tastecard as there is nothing financial going on with them.

https://join.tastecard.co.uk/what-is-tastecard/

and their App/website is about 100 times more professional than Big Dish's amateurish effort.

And they have 1000 restaurants in London.

https://www.britishbulls.com/SignalPage.aspx?lang=en&Ticker=DISH.L

Big Dish launches have always been pretty lame affairs and no doubt this will be the same. Also results were out on 1st August last year.

Personally I cannot see why they didn't go back for the Tastecard model. It seems illogical for restaurants to be giving up to 50% off the food bill and have to pay companies like Big Dish to send them customers. And very few restaurants are going to want to pay an upfront charge of £250 pcm. That sounds bonkers.

With the Tastecard model the customer has to pay the booking fee to get the discounted meal. The restaurant just gives the discount and nothing more.

https://www.tastecard.co.uk/restaurants/London-England

I see Tastecard already have Pizza Hut on board - 50% off deliveries every day and 2 for 1 on all dine-ins.

https://www.tastecard.co.uk/restaurants/Pizza-Hut-Delivery

https://www.tastecard.co.uk/restaurants/Pizza-Hut-Restaurants

Also Wildwood:

https://www.tastecard.co.uk/restaurants/Wildwood

and Hilton:

https://www.tastecard.co.uk/restaurants/Hilton

etc,etc.

A bit early for the full count for the day but currently 189 (+3).

I've been through several launches already with this company. They always disappoint. Slight share price increase initially and then the long fall kicks in. As for beta trials - absolute nonsense.

And to completely change the model is another very bad idea. Also they say they are going to do "a complete overhaul of the BigDish technology platform" - a platform which has never been in anything but a trial phase so far with it's few hundred restaurants.

Looks to me like Open Table have done everything that Big Dish are talking of doing already, without any fuss or nonsense or hold-ups.
They are taking restaurant bookings as was normal pre-lockdown; they are offering delivery of restaurant meals, delivered by deliveroo or Uber Eats, who it appears are just doing it for the delivery fee; and they are offering come and collect restaurant meals too.
No beta phase; no free service for 5 months while they see if it's going to work; no need for "significant enhancements made to our delivery platform that will be rolled out over the remainder of 2020" as it's all up and running already; and no fancy, complicated SaaS model, which is going to be the next total disaster here and will probably be the end of the company.

Don't forget the restaurants are already giving the discounts and they are not going to be very keen to stump up £250 a month or whatever on top. Tastecard and Gourmet Society are doing the same and the customer pays the booking fee not the restaurant. For the restaurant to pay the fee and the discount is not good sense.

Pizzza Hut have 240 restaurants. This new App already has 3000 restaurants listed, with thousands more to be added imminently.

I'm not sure what is going on.

Big Dish shareholders had better hope that when the govt initiative is over that these two tech entrepreneurs don't convert the App from Eat out to Help out to a Yield Management App.

Shows what happens when you get a company headed by a couple of amateurs and run from the Philippines. They are so out-of-touch it is unbelievable - and so slow.

It's just ridiculous. In a matter of days or a week or two since this initiative was announced these two tech entrepreneurs have designed an App and already got 3000 restaurants listed with thousands more imminent.

32,000 restaurants have so far registered to join the initiative - that is roughly 1 in 3 of all UK restaurants and includes some big names:

Wetherspoon
McDonald's
Costa Coffee
Burger King
Frankie and Benny's
Harverster
Toby Carvery
Wagamama
Oakman Inns
Stonegate pubs
Three Cheers Pub company

Against that Big Dish have got one chain to join their App - Pizza Hut.

Oh dear, what is happening here.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/money/12236045/eat-out-help-out-app-restaurant-finder/?utm_campaign=sunmainfacebook&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1595854717

I can't believe this. Has anyone read this? It shows how slow and out of touch Big Dish really are.

"To help diners out, two tech entrepreneurs in Manchester have created a new app which flags up places with the Eat Out to Help Out discount."

"The app has so far listed around 3,000 restaurants, pubs and cafes - but it plans on adding thousands more over the next few days.
Restaurants can ask to be added, or they can add themselves.
In addition, the team behind the app are also manually adding businesses that are confirmed to be taking part.
Restaurants can choose to customise their profile to include menus and posts about new offers.
The app has been designed by tech entrepreneurs Michael Lawes and Jordan Ryan Madeley from Sancus, and the pair say thousands of customers have already signed up.
Michael said: "We decided to build something that made it easy to find all the information at your fingertips.
We think it’s a great scheme but the government seems to be relying on posters in participating restaurants - and we want to digitally empower it."

"As of last week, 32,000 businesses had signed up to Eat Out to Help Out."

This is all up and running already. Big Dish are sort of talking about this. RNS dated 22cnd July:

"The Company notes that Pizza Hut has registered for the government's Eat Out To Help Out scheme. Pizza Hut have agreed to join BigDish in order for BigDish to amplify Pizza Hut's participation in the initiative. The Company will be seeking to add more restaurants who are participating in the initiative. As previously announced, the Company is not charging restaurants to join BigDish in order for BigDish to amplify participation in the Eat Out To Help Out initiative."

This brand new App has added 3000 restaurants in no time at all and is about to add thousands more. Big Dish have spent 2 years getting 186 restaurants on their App - and half of them aren't even giving any discounts.

The only thing that surprises me about Big Dish is that another start-up in the UK hasn't come along and shown them how it's all done and left them dead in the water - because that is just about where they are anyway.

Deliveroo and Uber Eats are obviously just acting as the deliverer - and assumably they are just charging for the delivery service - and not 35% of the whole meal cost!!!

Open Table are as busy now as they were prior to lockdown. Just take a look at some of these bookings.

https://www.opentable.co.uk/london-restaurants

They also now do a few "Get it Delivered". Not many, just a few, and for each and every one they are partnered with either deliveroo or Uber Eats and sometimes both. Nothing too complicated or original - just using the delivery service that is available.

Also they do a few "Takeaways" whereby the customer can pick the meal up themselves.

No idea. Plenty of potential though. Just looking at Open Table. They are up and running again and have 23,788 restaurants on their App in the UK.

Big Dish's 625 prior to lockdown was just a start and nothing more. They need to get into the thousands to have any chance of being noticed and used.

What better opportunity to get them signed up than now. The restaurants need their customers back and there's no commissions to pay.

It's time to get these restaurants signed up as quick as possible. Big Dish don't want to waste too much time on delivery and take-aways which will all disappear in a couple of months. Time to continue where they left off with the added attraction for the restaurants of no commission to pay for 5 months. Who wouldn't join the App.

That would be great. It is not what the RNS said, dated 22cnd July. This said:

"The Company notes that Pizza Hut has registered for the government's Eat Out To Help Out scheme. Pizza Hut have agreed to join BigDish in order for BigDish to amplify Pizza Hut's participation in the initiative. The Company will be seeking to add more restaurants who are participating in the initiative. As previously announced, the Company is not charging restaurants to join BigDish in order for BigDish to amplify participation in the Eat Out To Help Out initiative. The Company would like to refer shareholders to the announcement on 17 July 2020 entitled Business Update for further detail."

This says that "Pizza Hut have agreed to join BigDish in order for BigDish to amplify Pizza Hut's participation in the initiative." It doesn't say they Pizza Hut are joining the App for normal discounts but it would obviously be great if they are.

See for yourself. Compare these two menus. Eat-at-Home will not last long and the restaurants won't want it to take off either.

https://wildwoodrestaurants.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/MENU-JULY2020.pdf

https://deliveroo.co.uk/brands/wildwood

Tanya7 - as far as I know Big Dish are working with Pizza Hut to sign diners for the 50% off Monday to Wednesday Dine In deals. Big Dish are not involved in the delivery/collection side of Pizza Hut.

However, once the Pizza Hut dine-in restaurants are listed on the App maybe Big Dish should be looking at getting Pizza Hut to offer smaller discounts through Big Dish for the other days of the week and weekends.

By the way the share price has been going up and down since they floated. Stop barking on about the latest rise. The share price was 3p a few weeks ago - I know because I've just checked through my trades and I sold at 2.75p - quite enough profit for me at the time and higher than the share price reached on the Pizza Hut news.

I don't think that restaurant eat-at-home is going to last long. I don't think it will even take off. Walking past my local Wildwood on Saturday midday (and not even the evening) they were as busy as pro-lockdown. Diners were spaced and it was all pretty normal.

Looking as their "Wildwood at Home" menu it is almost non-existent - just a choice of 6 items. I wouldn't expect them to persist with that for too long. Besides they make a lot of their money from drinks - House white £15.50/Red £15.90 - so they need people to eat in.

Wildwood are open for eat-ins now. They are using deliveroo for eat-at-home delivery but there isn't any reason for them not to sign back up to the Big Dish App for restaurant diners - especially as it's free customers for 5/6 months.

I still can't see why the management here have changed anything or are trying to get involved in the eat-at-home side of this. They don't need to. It's just a panic move. All they need to do is to just keep doing what they were doing before the lockdown - signing new restaurants to the App.

The restaurants will use deliveroo or uber eats or Just Eat for home delivery whatever the cost as that is what they do. Big Dish pretending they can deliver cheaper is farcical. They have no delivery options available and, if they ever do, no doubt it will cost the same as the big companies. Wildwood is proof of this - they are already using Deliveroo.

Big Dish now have a great opportunity to sign anything from 3000 to 5000/6000 restaurants to the App/website in a few months. What could be easier than phoning a restaurant and saying join today, give it a try for 5/6 months - FOR FREE with nothing to pay at all - and then you can stay or go. It's a doddle.

Who wouldn't join and this gives Big Dish a chance to get their name known.

I make it 187.

If you go on the website on a PC or laptop and then bring up any location and then in the "Search for Restaurants" at the top they are all listed alphabetically and therefore easy to count.

Funny you should mention that as I still have my original identity from October 2009. Never needed to change it, never been banned, all my posts are still on the system. I have a completely clear conscience.

I wish I'd never heard of Big Dish. I wish they'd never floated.

Not that I'm out of pocket - I'm definitely in profit overall through all the ups and downs - but it has all been such hard, hard work - and not where it should have been if the management had known what they were doing from the start. They floated without a clue of how to build the business.