Restaurant Expert Solving Pain Points
What is the one single thing that helps you achieve the unachievable and do the undoable? Depending on who you ask, some of the answers might be hard work, persistence, expertise, and-or vision. But there are times when people can simply burn out and give up on hard work, eroding their dedication. At such a crucial point, it is ‘passion’ that keeps them going. Passion has the power to convert dreams into reality, or so I was told when I spoke with Eddie Fahmy.
With a passion for the restaurant industry, he is the CEO of A2Z Restaurant Consulting. During the last 14 years, he has carved out a niche in that industry. Then in 2019, with the clarity of vision that comes from decades of experience, he co-founded Dinevite, Inc.
Eddie began his restaurant industry journey at the age of 14 as a busboy in his hometown of Brooklyn, New York. During the following six years he would hold every position there was to hold in a restaurant: from line cook to the bartender. He honed his experience working in several restaurants and catering halls, where he learned the ins and outs of front-and-back-of-house management; all while graduating high school by the age of 16 and completing 4 years of college [with a major in Political Science and a minor in Business Administration] by the age of 20. He then purchased his first restaurant in 1994, the beautiful Bay-Side Grill in the Marine Park section of Brooklyn, New York.
Since then he has gone on to co-own various successful bars and nightclubs, including The Urban Jungle, a 4,000-capacity venue in Downtown New Haven, Connecticut. “Starting my consulting business was scary because it took me a long time to establish myself as an authoritative voice to the point I could charge people for my advice”, he told me.
He launched A2Z Restaurant Consulting in 2009, using his years of good and bad experiences alike, to use what he had learned to help other restaurateurs launch new restaurants or turn around existing ones. With a growing client list, Eddie offered Jessica Btesh a junior partnership position after her serving as the A2Z project manager. She accepted and the company remains busy with an active client base.
Investigating the most common pain points and developing solutions
Eddie has always formulated new concepts and best-of-breed tactics in the launch and management of his various restaurant endeavors. So launching a consulting company was the next obvious evolution for him. He has since worked with a wide array of restaurant clients, including fast-food, casual dining, and fine dining. He was even contracted by Amazon Video for a restaurant promotion of their Emmy Award-winning show The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. The goal was to recreate a 1950s version of the iconic Carnegie Deli, as a pop-up restaurant, for a 10-day promotion event. Eddie handled the venue setup, staffing, training, and day-to-day management, serving some 6- 10,000 sandwiches during the event to a packed house.
Always ahead of the trends, he has been featured on television on many occasions, including the launch of alcohol-infused cupcakes in one venue, and alcohol-infused milkshakes in another. He also was at the forefront of Kosher-only sports bar launches on Long Island and in Manhattan, NY.
Eddie has always been a visionary, with the discipline, management skills, and fortitude to navigate barriers. He applies real-life experiences to running his own restaurants or helping navigate the challenges faced by his clients.
The transition from a restaurant owner to a restaurant consultant was never a cakewalk. He had to learn to develop an ability to approach a new client’s restaurant from an analytical viewpoint as a fresh pair of eyes, having the flexibility to consider multiple possible concepts based on the research, rather than jumping into a single concept as if it were his own restaurant and simply following a gut-instinct. Apart from this, he had to be on top of the ever-changing technologies in the industry that has disrupted everything from marketing to acquiring customers to processing, serving, and delivering food orders.
In 2019, after years of servicing clients, he recognized a serious and consistent pain point they all encountered: keeping seats full on slow nights, and the lack of cost-effective, flexible promotion tools for restaurant owners. So he conceived Dinevite.me. It was designed as a non-contract monthly subscription flexible promotion tool, rather than — like many other platforms –trying to insert itself as a silent un-invested partner.
Dinevite.me is the online property of Dinevite Inc., a Delaware Corporation. The platform’s key function release — the VIP Offer Request — was Eddie’s brainchild, to which he enlisted long-time friend and collaborator Bruce T. Dugan (now serving as Chief Operating Officer), and Mario Delfino (Chief Technology Officer) to further define and develop the platform. While Eddie had the product vision for Dinevite, he didn’t have the foresight (nor did anyone) to see how disruptive the 2020 COVID pandemic would be. One month after the media launch of Dinevite at the International Restaurant Show at the Jacob Javits Convention center in March of that year, the project had to be put on hold.
THE DINEVITE TEAM
While the three partners make up the strategic planning team, Eddie Fahmy serves as CEO, Bruce T. Dugan,( CEO of the digital marketing and technology agency Inicia Incorporated (Incognito Worldwide, I2MEDIALAB, and i2WEBSERVICES). serves as Dinevite Chief Operating Officer, to oversee and manage operations.
Mario Delfino, (President and CTO at Inicia Incorporated (and CEO of I2MEDIALAB), serves as Dinevite Chief Technology Officer. He is the system architect and oversees and manages all platform and server technologies.
Intention to launch in India, Asia, and tourist cities in Europe, Mexico, and South America
As of this writing, Dinevite was currently being rolled out for BETA testing in the Nassau and Suffolk Counties of New York, with an expectation to quickly expand into all of New York City, New Jersey, Florida, and other key markets in the United States throughout 2022 and into early 2023. The intent for 2023 — with new functionalities being added — is to launch internationally in India, Asia, and the tourist cities of Europe, Mexico, and South America, in no certain order. Moreover, it aims to continue to explore industry pain points and develop new functions for Dinevite to address and solve those issues.
Besides his passion for restaurants, Eddie loves to travel, food, and explore different cultures. His advice for entrepreneurs is this: “Don’t think you are the smartest person in the room, always be willing to listen and learn. Work hard, be honest, and learn from your own mistakes and those around you.”
He noted that: “Entrepreneurs that are successful do what they do because they’re passionate; they’re driven by the love of doing it, not any ultimate benefits obtained” Eddie told me, and then continued, “My partner Bruce summed it up when he said Money can’t be the goal, that is just the reward for a job well done. And I agree, and would just add that you have to love it because it can take years of grueling hours and effort before you realize any financial success.”
You can learn more about Eddie’s projects at:
Dinevite.me, A2zrestaurantconsulting.com, and A2Zbusiness.consulting,
