{"id":19904,"date":"2016-07-08T00:27:54","date_gmt":"2016-07-08T07:27:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=19904"},"modified":"2016-07-06T16:58:51","modified_gmt":"2016-07-06T23:58:51","slug":"connecting-local-food-fans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2016\/07\/08\/connecting-local-food-fans\/","title":{"rendered":"Connecting local food fans"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the Tangoo app, Paul Davidescu, centre, brings together restaurateurs, social influencers and diners. (photo from tangoo.ca<\/a>)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Food is more than nourishment, says Paul Davidescu, it builds community. The Vancouver entrepreneur is behind an app that aims to unite people over food.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are passionate about creating community,\u201d said Davidescu, whose company, Tangoo, is connecting local food fans. \u201cThe way that we believe you create community is over the dinner table, where you get people together for dinner, brunch, what we call breaking bread, because that\u2019s when the big ideas get created, that\u2019s when people find love, that\u2019s when people really get together.\u201d<\/p>\n

For restaurateurs, Tangoo promises to \u201cattract the perfect customer by sharing your business story through social media influencers, our pocket concierge app, and integrated marketing solutions.\u201d For diners, Tangoo offers \u201cthe pulse of the city\u2019s best dining experiences, exclusively recommended by foodie influencers featured on the app.\u201d And, for social influencers \u2013 a relatively new but increasingly powerful demographic \u2013 Tangoo offers a front row seat to emerging food trends in the city.<\/p>\n

Davidescu, who graduated from the University of British Columbia\u2019s Sauder School of Business in 2012, explained that businesses are having an increasingly difficult time connecting with young consumers through traditional media.<\/p>\n

\u201cNowadays, PR [and] social media are turning into one, especially if you\u2019re looking at targeting millennials,\u201d he said. \u201cThey don\u2019t really watch TV anymore. They\u2019re on social media.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tangoo\u2019s approach is to provide information through their mobile app that helps potential customers get a sense of a restaurant\u2019s personality. Part of the experience includes the opinions of local figures like chef Vikram Vij, record label founder Ari Paunonen and lifestyle expert Natalie Langston on their favorite meal destinations.<\/p>\n

While the Tangoo app has about 20,000 users, Davidescu\u2019s vision is to leverage the existing audiences of influencers. By inviting well-known figures and social media bigshots to be the first to experience, say, a new summer cocktail or a dining room\u2019s revamped menu, Tangoo helps restaurants get their news out to the people who most closely follow such things.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe started to actually connect these influencers who we already have on our app with the actual restaurants directly,\u201d he said. \u201cNot to the point where they\u2019re just recommending them on our app, but they\u2019re actually going into the restaurant and they\u2019re tasting the food and actually posting on their own Instagram.\u201d<\/p>\n

Influencer marketing, as it is known, is Tangoo\u2019s bread and butter.<\/p>\n

\u201cThink of it as more informal PR,\u201d he said. For businesses with tight budgets \u2013 and restaurants tend to operate on narrow margins \u2013 conventional media can be very expensive and social media can be a time-consuming gig.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou resort to either not doing social media or giving it to your manager at the bar who is multitasking and will never, ever do a very good job on that,\u201d said Davidescu.<\/p>\n

Tangoo aims to do the work for the restaurant by connecting them with social media figures with foodie followers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of like getting guaranteed press through a very targeted channel,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are trying to make PR really affordable for restaurants, that\u2019s the core. They\u2019re the ones that nurture community by being alive and keeping things interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Right now, Tangoo is busy with the Vancouver food scene, but Davidescu said it could grow organically to other cities in future.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of restaurants in Vancouver,\u201d said Davidescu, who was born in Mexico and came here as a child. He was a camper and counselor at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, Camp Hatikvah and Camp Biluim in Quebec. When he was a student at UBC, he helped organize an interfaith discussion group. As part of his co-op studies in business school, he had placements in Germany and Barcelona.<\/p>\n

Davidescu said there is a connection between his Jewishness and his devotion to food and connecting over a meal. Community is built across the table, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFood is cultural,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a way to just bring people together.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the Tangoo app, Paul Davidescu, centre, brings together restaurateurs, social influencers and diners. (photo from tangoo.ca) Food is more than nourishment, says Paul Davidescu, it builds community. The Vancouver entrepreneur is behind an app that aims to unite people over food. \u201cWe are passionate about creating community,\u201d said Davidescu, whose company, Tangoo, is connecting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19890,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[3813,6066,6067,6068,6065],"class_list":["post-19904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-app","tag-davidescu","tag-foodie","tag-restaurants","tag-tangoo"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}