Wix Acquires OpenRest To Give Small Restaurants A Larger Presence

This article was first published on The Times of Israel and was re-posted with permission.

Israel-based website building tool provider Wix.com is acquiring OpenRest, another Israeli start-up that specializes in on-line ordering and mobile solutions for restaurants. The acquisition is Wix’s second in an industry-specific vertical in recent months. OpenRest’s technology will be integrated into Wix’s web authoring platform to further expand the company’s already considerable reach, and giving a boost to smaller restaurants looking for ways to attract hungry customers.

With 55 million users, Wix, now a public company, is the first firm to turn web authoring into a routine activity for anyone, even those without technical skills. Wix offers a drag and drop method to build HTML5-based websites. Users can choose among hundreds of templates to build upon, and add basic web interface services as well as advanced apps like music, shopping forms, and social media. Wix operates on a freemium basis, with basic and some advanced services free, and additional services, support, and hosting of sites available for a price.

Example of Wix sites for OpenRest

Among the unique features Wix offers its users is an App Market, which includes specialized modules that users can add to their sites to expand functionality. The apps allow Wix users to integrate features like e-commerce, social networking functionality, marketing, and others into their sites, without having to spend endless hours trying to tweak code in order to get it to work with existing objects and features.

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With OpenRest, Wix will be able to add services like order forms, menus, maps, and social media connections that restaurant and cafe owners will be able to integrate into their sites. Those services are aimed at independent restaurants, either single establishments or small chains in limited geographic areas usually owned by locals, who run the chain themselves, which are struggling to survive against major chain restaurants over a shrinking pie of customers. Restaurant patronage has been declining in recent years, especially among underemployed millennials (18-24 year olds) who can’t afford to eat out as much as previous groups of youngsters, like the baby boomers and Gen X’ers.

Many independent restaurants already have websites, but they are unlikely to have their own on-line or mobile menu/reservation/ordering system. For that, they turn to established sites like Grubhub and Seamless, which have apps that provide on-line services for small restaurants. But those apps take a hefty commission, as much as 20% on each order, making the proposition a less than winning one for many small restaurant owners.

To continue reading this article on the TOI site, click here.

Photos: Alam/ OpenRest