Square Acquires Entrees On Trays For Caviar

Square has made a new acquisition in the on-demand food delivery space: 32-year-old Entrees On Trays.

Caviar Product Lead Gokul Rajaram told TechCrunch the goal of the purchase was twofold: to speed Caviar’s growth in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and to profit from the partnerships Entrees On Trays has established with local Texas restaurants.

The two firms are similar, Rajaram said. “They have great relationships with restaurants, and they offer amazing service for diners.”

Going forward, the acquisition will ensure that Caviar can deliver food from Hoffbrau Steak and Grill House and Riscky’s BBQ, in-demand favorites that had heretofore not been available on the platform.

The market is particularly important to Caviar, which has been in Dallas since 2015, Rajaram said, as the city has more restaurants per capita than any other community in the U.S.

Following Square’s procurement of OrderAhead last year, Caviar debuted an order-ahead pickup platform. Rajaram told TechCrunch its food-ordering business is solid, though he declined to share specific numbers.

“We feel good about Caviar’s overall growth in the past year,” Rajaram said. “An increasing number of restaurants are choosing Caviar as their partner because we are a complete online ordering platform.”

Caviar is targeting additional growth going forward and will be installing cross-country pop-ups. For example, in 2017 Caviar brought Chicago’s Honey Butter Fried Chicken to the San Francisco Bay Area and San Francisco’s Souvla to New York.

“We’re always thinking a lot about how to continue being the best possible partner to restaurants … exploring ways to help both consumer and corporate diners find delicious, healthy meals,” Rajaram said. “Many people think food delivery means low-quality meals that are bad for you — we want to end this misperception!”