We recently met with two restaurateurs in New York to ask them about the use of technology in their daily work. They both highlighted how the use of mobile applications in their kitchens has helped their teams to be more efficient and has reduced their stress levels.
“The biggest pain-point used to be ordering from multiple vendors all with different communication methods, and keeping track of all of it”. Talking to Felipe Donelly about running his restaurant, Colonia Verde in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene neighborhood, we learned about how his team has innovated in the way they order their supplies, thanks to a new app that local restaurant professionals are adopting.
This mobile app allows them to order supplies on a smartphone and chat directly with their suppliers. His team is now using this system to order all their supplies, and Felipe loves it. “Rekki (the name of the app) just totally nailed the problem. It’s an app that anyone can use and makes it quick and easy to communicate”.
This app surfaced in an other one of our conversation. In Manhattan, Gonzalo Guerrero of Ivan Ramen said that before he started using Rekki, everything was manual. “Throughout the day I’d be making calls or writing emails to suppliers… And if you get distracted or miss the cut-offs, it’s a problem.”
Felipe told us that he really liked how the app worked as a group chat. “It’s so simple but removes a barrier that was there in the old way of ordering. I also love the message receipt feature. With Rekki, you know your supplier has received your order at 5.30pm – and you can hold them accountable!” For Gonzalo, a highlight is the week-to-week tracking, “I love the feature that gives you par levels. For example, let’s say you’re ordering pork belly. It tells you that you used 30 pork bellies last week, and today is Tuesday, you have 16 left. So it helps you keep track of how much you should be ordering”.
Both Gonzalo and Felipe told us that previously, a big challenge was that a single person had to be responsible for ordering – from multiple vendors through different communication methods. “Most of my cooks could never have used previous systems or made orders by phone”, Felipe said. But now the whole team can use Rekki.
At this point the app had us really curious. Not least because, according to Rekki’s website, it’s currently in private beta, developer-speak for test phase. We haven’t been able to get in touch with the Rekki team, but Gonzalo and Felipe said they’d both managed to get a demo from the Rekki team and gone from there. It seems that Rekki is a coveted secret among savvy restaurant professionals in NYC.
