Praesto, and at the Restaurant Everything is Ready for You
"Put the pasta into the boiling water, I'm coming" is something that every Italian has said once in his life. What if we could say something similar to the restaurateurs that serve us lunch? What if we could tell them that we're coming in fifteen minutes and what we'd like to eat? We'd save time we'd otherwise spend waiting for a table, ordering, and paying the bill. That's the idea behind Praesto, an app and a web page that will allow students and professionals to order their meal and enter the restaurant when dishes are ready to be served.
The idea came to Nicole Silvya Bouris, Gabriele Buonaiuto e Andrea Marino, three Bocconi students that share the same origin in Campania. "Our food culture prevents us from settling for a quick lunch", says Bouris, 21 years, the youngest member of the team. Very short lunch breaks are forcing people to grab a sandwich on the fly. Praesto will put them in connection with the restaurateurs. They will open the app, select their favorite restaurant or one of the closest to them identified by the geolocation feature, choose what to eat from the menu and pay on line in advance by credit card. They'll use the saved time to enjoy their meal, or to engage in other activities.
The beta version of Praesto will be hopefully ready in late May. "The feedback from the Milanese restaurants has been encouraging so far. Some have said they had thought about something pretty similar, but they didn't finalize the project because of the cost of developing an app. We have internalized the cost: three team members and students of the Università Federico II in Naples, Giulio Mazzeo, Francesco Esposito, and Alfonso Cimasa, look after the IT. Without them realizing the app would be impossible. They're gifted computer technicians with an entrepreneurial mindset that makes them unique". Why restaurateurs should give Praesto a commission if they already have full tables every day? "The restaurants will increase their exposure and, what's more important, they'll get a better table turnover rate. They will rationalize people's flow and thus they'll accommodate more customers in the same time frame. And there won't be patrons who turn to the competitors because they're discouraged by the long lines or the lack of seating".
Nicole Silvya Bouris studied Law and is now an Economics undergraduate student. Gabriele Buonaiuto graduated in International Management and worked at the online food delivery company Food Panda. Andrea Marino, who's still attending International Management, was a restaurant store manager in Los Angeles and is currently engaged in an exchange program in Chile with CEMS, the association that brings together the major business schools worldwide, including Bocconi University. "The challenge now is to create the app, find backers, be operational in time for EXPO 2015. And of course combine work with our study commitments. Praesto is a service designed for large urban centers. If it works in Milan, why not try to launch it in London or in Paris?".