Chewsy

How often have you seen a great photo or witty comment in Chewsy and wish you could let others know? Well, our latest version lets you do just that. Just tap the heart icon and send some positive thoughts out to the community. When someone likes your review, you can easily see your admirer. Warm and fuzzies for everyone!

Our newest version also makes it easy to stay up-to-date. Chewsy will now notify you when people like your reviews and when friends follow you. There’s even a new Notification tab that makes it easy to see a summary of everything you may have missed.

Download the latest version and see how the Chewsy community just got a whole lot closer together. As always, we love hearing your feedback so drop us a line at help@chewsy.com.

Go on, be Chewsy.

We’re thrilled to announce the release of a major update to Chewsy. The latest version unlocks a whole new set of exciting scenarios for your taste buds:  

• Discover the best dishes in your city that are recommended by food critics.
• Watch videos and read articles by critics directly within Chewsy.
• See how your friends’ food recommendations compare with the experts.
• Rate dishes reviewed by critics and let others know your thoughts.
• Find specific dishes with powerful new search, filter, and mapping tools.

 Let’s take a deeper look into the new Chewsy. 

Get the full picture 

Think about the last time you researched something before making a purchase. Did you read customer comments online? Did you ask family or friends for their recommendations? Did you seek expert reviews? Chances are likely you consulted different trusted sources.   

 Reviews are more meaningful when you see multiple sources at the same time.

The problem with researching is that it may take too much time or it’s too much of a hassle, so we reserve it for bigger decisions. Now, what if an everyday choice like figuring out what to eat was made easier by quickly surfacing multiple reviews from different types of sources? Imagine seeing what food major critics recommend, right next to what your friends like or dislike. Chewsy is the first food app to do just that.  

Chewsy’s latest version seamlessly integrates reviews by the crowd, friends, and now food critics. These expert reviews come from national publications, local newspapers, food blogs, and even TV shows. Not only do you get a diverse set of opinions, they are likely from a source you already trust. Finding a great dish has never been easier. 

 Chewsy shows you critic recommendations of food
alongside reviews by friends and the crowd.

Problems with today’s critic content

Chewsy was one of the first apps to let you rate what you ate as well as read reviews by your friends and the larger community. These were important first steps in solving what we call the “dining dilemma,” but to really help people know what to order we knew we had to provide even more information. Critics are the integral piece that takes Chewsy’s value to the next level.

Critics are valuable sources, but we found several problems with consuming their content. First, since these reviews are most likely on the Web or printed, they are usually not location-aware. This means that if you visit a site on your phone, they probably don’t curate content based on your context. Wouldn’t it be valuable to know what’s good nearby? Second, it’s not easy to see multiple critic sources at the same time. Sure it’s great to know that a publication recommends something, but it’s far more valuable to know that several different experts all like the same thing.

Another major problem is around the granularity of the reviews. Most critic reviews are about restaurants and there’s just too much effort required to cut through an entire article or watch an entire video to discover details about specific dishes. Chewsy is all about the “Dish on the Dish,” since we know what really defines the dining experience is the food. Quickly seeing specific dish recommendations by critics just isn’t possible today.

In summary, restaurant critic reviews should be relevant to your location, they should be aggregated to show multiple sources, and they need to surface what really matters, the food.

Integrating the power of critics

Bringing critic content to Chewsy meant that we had to solve these problems for our customers and make sure we also drove traffic to the critic sources. Our goal is to help both our customers and the critics.  

The first step in incorporating critics was to isolate the specific food reviews from articles and videos. This was a proprietary technique that resulted in thousands of dish reviews across almost one hundred different sources such as major national publications, local newspapers, food blogs, and even TV shows. Where possible, we also included an excerpt from the review to provide you more detail. Since these dishes are like any other dish in Chewsy, anyone can review them and add their own comments.  

 Drill into a dish to read customer comments as well as snippets from critic reviews.

The second step involved associating each dish with a restaurant. This allows each item to be tied to a location. Now you’ll know what critic-recommended food is nearby or in a specific city.  

Finally, we made sure to cite all sources and provide instant access to the original content. It’s easy to see exactly who recommends the dish. If you want to find out more, simply tap the review and you’ll be taken to the critic’s website. Chewsy even supports videos so you can jump right to the part of a TV episode and watch the dish being discussed! Chewsy makes it easy to discover thousands of articles and videos about food.  

Tap a critic review to see the original source. Tap “see all items in this review” to see a list of dishes mentioned in the article or video.

Keeping critics in check

What happens when you follow a critic’s advice and don’t like the recommendation? Today, there’s little recourse to voice your opinion. Nothing stops someone else from following the same path and having your experience. With Chewsy however, anyone can rate a dish also reviewed by a critic.  Say you see a review by that big-time foodie on the best pizza in your city and you disagree. Just tap a button to add your own review and let others know. Love that local lasagna in that is recommended by your favorite food show? Rate the dish and let your friends know it’s the real deal.  

Since reviews are aggregated, you also get a rare view into the cross-section of different critics. You’ll see where the experts agree. Chewsy automatically weights dishes with multiple critic reviews highly and balances them with crowd and friend reviews.

Solving the “empty room” problem

Let’s be honest, a common problem with apps based upon user-generated content services is that they tend to lack interesting data at first. If people don’t contribute, a community never develops and without a community, people won’t contribute. Chewsy initially addressed this challenge by an extensive beta program that helped lay the foundation for our community. However, we always wanted to do even better.

Critics in Chewsy not only provide incredibly valuable recommendations, they do so regardless of who else is contributing in the community. If you happen to be an early user in a new market, you’ll still get significant benefit from using Chewsy. If you are in one of our established cities, you’ll discover even more great dishes. Chewsy is now even better at being the reference app you can rely on for great food reviews.

Finding food faster

In addition to adding critic content, the latest Chewsy version also makes it even easier to find great food. We’ve made several improvements to search, filter, sort, and navigation.

Search continues to get more powerful. Under the Food tab, you can search for dish names, food categories, ingredients, and even for a specific critic. Restaurant search also lets you find critic reviews and the addition of the People Bar lets you see reviews by friends.

Chewsy now supports advanced filtering and sorting to further scope what you’re looking for. You can drill down to see food by location or by overall ratings. Switching between all food and the best food is just a tap away. Also, the Restaurant filter lets you just see just see places with reviews. We received feedback from many of you that you wanted to easily see how many dishes are reviewed at a restaurant so we now surface this information at the top-level view.    

 Filter and sort your results to better find great food.

The map has undergone a major upgrade too. Now you can pan and zoom anywhere in the world to see Chewsy reviews. It’s easy to plan tonight’s dinner across town or look up great dishes near your hotel before travel. This was one of the most popular requests we received. Thanks for the feedback!   

With Chewsy 4.0, you’ll know what the critics know, you’ll get reviews from many different sources all in one place, and you’ll find what you’re looking for faster. Download the latest version and never order a bad dish again.

Go on, be Chewsy.

After almost 1,000 entries in Chewsy’s Dinner On Us! contest and 9 winners to date, we’re finally wrapping up with the announcement of the last 3 lucky Chewsers. Here are the final week’s winners, their prizes, and their winning entries: 

Winner: Susan G.
Prize: $100 gift certificate to Canlis
Winning review: 

Winner: Levi C.
Prize: $100 gift certificate to Rover’s
Winning review: 

Winner: Erin M.
Prize: $100 gift certificate to Ray’s Boathouse
Winning review: 

 Congratulations to Susan, Levi, and Erin!

It’s been a great contest and we’re thankful to all of you who participated. Also, our special thanks to all the amazing Seattle restaurants for their support: 

• Barrio Mexican Kitchen and Bar
• Canlis
• The Coterie Room
• Lot No. 3
• Local 360
• Luc
• Mistral Kitchen
• Purple Cafe and Wine Bar
• Ray’s Boathouse
• Rover’s
• Spur Gastropub
• Tavern Law

Go on, be chewsy.

The Chewsy Dinner On Us! Seattle contest is almost over (only one week left!) and we have another round of winners to announce this week. Here are the winners, their prizes, and their winning entries:

Winner: Carol Kwok
Prize: $100 gift certificate to Purple Cafe and Wine Bar
Winning review:

Winner: Nelson Y.
Prize: $100 gift certificate to Mistral Kitchen
Winning review:

Winner: Jonathan I.
Prize: $100 gift certificate to the Coterie Room
Winning review:

Congratulations to Carol, Nelson, and Jonathan!

Remember, we only have one week left for the Dinner on Us! contest. It’s not too late to enter and win a certificate to one of the following excellent restaurants:

• Canlis
• Ray’s Boathouse
• Rover’s

Find out more about the contest and learn how to win your free dinner. Good luck!

Go on, be chewsy.

We’re excited to announce the second week of winners of the Chewsy Dinner On Us! Seattle contest. Here are the winners, their prizes, and their winning entries:

Winner: Jimmy J.
Prize: $100 gift certificate to Spur Gastropub
Winning review:

Winner: Christopher Y.
Prize: $100 gift certificate to Barrio Mexican Kitchen and Bar
Winning review:

Winner: Steve D.
Prize: $100 gift certificate to Luc
Winning review:

Congratulations to Jimmy, Christopher, and Steve! Remember, you can still win a certificate to the following restaurants:

• Canlis
• The Coterie Room
• Mistral Kitchen
• Purple Cafe and Wine Bar
• Ray’s Boathouse
• Rover’s

Find out more about the contest and learn how to win your free dinner. Good luck!

Go on, be chewsy.

We’re excited to announce the first week of winners of the Chewsy Dinner On Us! Seattle contest. Here are the winners, their prizes, and their winning entries: 

Winner: Maggie T.
Prize: $100 gift certificate to Tavern Law
Winning review:

Winner: Steve C.
Prize: $100 gift certificate to Lot No 3
Winning review:

Winner: Leni L.
Prize: $100 gift certificate to Local 360
Winning review:

Congratulations to Maggie, Steve, and Leni! Remember, you can still win a certificate to the following restaurants:

• Barrio Mexican Kitchen and Bar
• Canlis
• The Coterie Room
• Luc
• Mistral Kitchen
• Purple Cafe and Wine Bar
• Ray’s Boathouse
• Rover’s
• Spur Gastropub

Find out more about the contest and learn how to win your free dinner. Good luck!

Go on, be chewsy.

Seattle, we have a gift for you. We’d like to buy you a fancy dinner. Ok, we can’t buy everyone dinner, but we would like to do something to show our appreciation for all your support. We’ve partnered with some of the city’s best restaurants to bring you something special.

Throughout March we’ll be giving away twelve $100 gift certificates to some of our favorite restaurants. All it takes to enter is to first register and then use Chewsy to review dishes around the city. The more reviews you have with photos, the more likely you are to win. Nice and simple.

Find out more about the contest and learn how to win your free dinner. Good luck!

Go on, be chewsy.

We are happy to announce several updates to Chewsy that polish scenarios and offer a few new experiences. Let’s have a look at some of the improvements we made in our most recent versions.

Frictionless first experience

Don’t you hate it when you download a new app and you are forced to first create an account?  It’s as if the company cares more about collecting your information rather than showing you the value of its product. Not a pleasant experience at all. At Chewsy, we’ve never required you to create an account to consume content from the app. After all, we believe it’s our job to provide you with value and then earn the privilege of your account.
 
With our latest version we’ve gone a step further and have even decided not to ask you for your location when you start. How many location-based services can claim that? Instead, we found a way to give you a taste of the Chewsy community without collecting any information from you at all. Read on.

Chewsy is bustling with activity

Being part of a successful community means that you should never feel alone. Chewsy is growing well thanks to the invaluable participation of people like you and we wanted to further unlock the activity in the Chewsy universe. We accomplished this by adding a new view to the Feed.

The new “Everyone” view now lets you see a sample of what other Chewsers are up to all over the world (fig 1). You’ll get a glimpse of activity ranging from dishes reviewed, new photos added and people connecting with one another. This is especially interesting when you launch the app for the first time and immediately see how alive the community is. The best part is that we don’t even need your location to provide you this view.

Fig 1
See a sample of real-time Chewsy activity from around the world 

Rate with a single tap

Chewsy value is in its community and the dish ratings so we made it even easier to add reviews. We’ve added a big “Rate” button front-and-center at the bottom of the app that makes it incredibly simple to contribute. All you have to do is tap the button and you are taken to a single page that asks you to fill in the dish details. 

One of our favorite elements of the new one-tap rate flow is that it works even when you don’t have connectivity. So let’s say your network is spotty or you’re traveling abroad and don’t want data roaming fees. You’ll still be able to launch Chewsy, start a review by typing in a dish name, add an optional photo or comment, rate the item and save a draft to complete and submit later—all without being connected.

Discover even more restaurants

Chewsy continues to grow quickly and we’re happy to announce we now have over 600,000 restaurants in our system. We’ve also integrated with Factual to tap into a massive database of venues that will continue to increase over time.

Chances are good that if you’re in a U.S. city, you’ll find a restaurant nearby. In the even we still don’t have a restaurant you are looking for, it’s still very easy to add a venue.

Find that restaurant you’re looking for

Have you ever wanted to look up a specific restaurant to see dish reviews or to find out basic information like address, directions or a phone number? Of course you have and Chewsy delivers. From the Restaurants page, type in the name of the restaurant in the search field, specify its city and find any of the restaurants in our database (fig 2). This is especially useful given all those restaurants Chewsy keeps adding.

Fig 2
Search lets you find specific restaurants 

Read reviews faster

Since Chewsy is all about the reviews, we wanted to make the flow of reading them even faster. An updated Reviews page makes it much easier to quickly scan reviews by several people so you can quickly get a sense of what people are saying.

Fig 3
A flattened Review page makes it easier to scan comments

Showcase your Chewsy level

Are you looking to connect with others in Chewsy and not sure who to follow? Are you a heavy Chewsy contributor and wish to let others know? Curious about how many reviews you’ve written compared to your friends? Chewsy now features levels that make it easy to showcase your achievement and discover super engaged Chewsers. Every profile picture now includes an overlay that indicates one’s level.

Leveling up is easy. Earn points by rating items, taking food photos and by sharing reviews via your social networks. Chewsy also rewards you when you are the first to add an item and when you unlock badges. You can even visit your Profile page and see track your progress to the next level.

Fig 4
A new Profile page showcases your level, your stats and your bio

Update your new profile

We’ve given the Profile page a facelift. The new page offers a bigger view of your photo and space for a brief bio. Take a moment to tell the Chewsy community a little about you and find out about fellow foodies. There’s also a “Last seen in” field that shows the last city a Chewser reviewed something, so you’ll get a sense of where a Chewser has been recently active.

Share your own comment

The Chewsy Transmogrificationer continues to generate great feedback from people like you.  We certainly appreciate the popularity of the feature as well as seeing the quirky statements on social networks.  We want to continue improving the experience.  One suggestion for feedback we heard from several people was that while they like the zany auto-generated suggestions, sometimes they just want to use their own message. 

The updated Transmogrificationer now offers the ability to use your words as the text (fig 5). When you type in an optional comment, you will see your message listed among the suggested phrases. What if your comment is over 140 characters for Twitter?  No problem, we simply trim your post and the rest may be read by following the accompanying link.

Fig 5
Share your comment with friends

We hope you enjoyed learning about the latest changes to Chewsy. If you haven’t already, download the latest Chewsy version for free and see how these enhancements will make it even easier for you to discover and share great food. Follow us @BeChewsy or like us on Facebook to stay apprised of other updates.

Go on, be Chewsy.

The Chewsy team was honored to win first place at the 2011 Startup Riot in Seattle. Twenty five startups competed by presenting three minute pitches. Finalists were chosen by a panel of respected judges and the audience voted for the winner. Check out the Chewsy coverage on GeekWire.

We’d like to send our sincerest thanks to Sanjay Parekh, Startup Riot’s organizer, the judges and the audience. We’d also like to congratulate the other finalists, iSheetMusic, OfferUp, Toolz.me and Apptentive as well as all the other teams for their great pitches.