While pursuing an MBA at Georgetown University, Konstantin Zvereff and Jag Bansal were given an assignment that focused on a growing restaurant chain, and they immediately saw that something seemed out of whack in the industry: The front-of-house staff had access to all kinds of helpful technology—from reservations to table management to orders—but the back of house was still using Excel spreadsheets and voicemails to manage orders and deliveries from suppliers.
“Watching the chef place different, but basically standard, orders to seven suppliers over the course of an hour, we saw a huge opportunity to make life better for the kitchen,” Zvereff says.
With that, BlueCart was born. The platform allows a restaurant to place orders to all its suppliers in one click.
Alissa Jeffery, chef de cuisine at Rustico Restaurant & Bar in the Ballston neighborhood of Arlington, Virginia, was one of the first to test BlueCart, which was then called Improvonia, earlier this year. “It has been about six months since we started using it, and it saves me a ton of time and organizes a lot of our ordering processes,” she says. “My co-workers and purveyors love it.”
Currently, more than 2,200 restaurants are using the platform, and the implementation process is fairly easy. “They simply create an account on our website, upload their list of products, and start placing orders,” Zvereff says. “The list of products can be [in any format], from an Excel sheet, to a quick phone picture of their order guides or invoices, or anything in between.”
After restaurants upload their product lists, the online ordering platform makes it easy to place multiple orders, set recurring orders, and review the order history. BlueCart automatically breaks down the data and creates real-time graphs that show trends in orders and spending. The platform supports all types of products and suppliers—bar to bathroom to back door, including paper providers, linen services, and tableware, as well as food and beverage purveyors from produce and meats to beer, wine, and spirits.
