Zest Maps Is the AI-Powered ‘Spiritual Successor to Foursquare’

As Mario Gomez-Hall walks maine done his caller edifice find app, Zest Maps, the laminitis pauses connected its idiosyncratic leaderboard and highlights a illustration topping the charts with implicit 1,000 visits logged. It’s Foursquare cofounder Dennis Crowley, helping trial the beta version.

“He's fixed america truly utile feedback,” Gomez-Hall says. “It's benignant of a spiritual successor to Foursquare.” (For those who whitethorn not remember, Foursquare was a blistery location check-in societal app astir 2010 erstwhile GPS-enabled apps were archetypal trending.)

The halfway gist of Zest Maps, rolling retired contiguous for iOS users (no Android enactment yet), is the automatic logging of each edifice and cafe you sojourn by tracking your credit paper swipes and utilizing your information to item different nutrient spots you whitethorn enjoy. The app’s AI tools analyse your eating past and tailor a representation of adjacent recommendations with photos and descriptions of each spot’s vibe.

Zest besides aggregates this idiosyncratic information to emblem up-and-coming restaurants successful your area, on with the caller spots your friends visit. “We lone amusement the archetypal sojourn to a place,” helium says. “So, if you support going backmost to the aforesaid pizzeria, we're not spamming your friends with the aforesaid pizzeria.” Visits to concatenation restaurants besides aren’t often highlighted connected Zest. The app pays much attraction to your day nighttime astatine the Brazilian steakhouse than immoderate after-work McDouble.

Gomez-Hall knows that immoderate users volition beryllium hesitant to nexus their cards, emphasizing that the diagnostic is optional and facilitated by Plaid, a fashionable level that connects fintech apps to your bank; services similar Google Wallet and Wealthfront usage Plaid. “We're not seeing your OnlyFans,” helium says. “We're lone looking astatine nutrient and drink.” In summation to lone analyzing eating transactions, Zest allows users to power who tin spot their visits arsenic friends and delete immoderate edifice visit.

The founder’s illustration breaks down his 966 logged visits into the apical 5 categories: cafe, bakery, Thai, pizza, and Japanese. His illustration shows Delicious Thai Kitchen and Ike’s Love & Sandwiches successful Oakland arsenic a mates of his “go-to” spots, arsenic good arsenic saved lists of restaurants helium wants to visit, either adjacent oregon connected vacation. Whenever a person goes to a spot you’ve saved, it’s apt highlighted connected your Zest Map.

His aspirations with Zest are focused, looking to complement apps radical presently usage alternatively than attempting to displace established players. “A niche web is possibly adjacent much valuable, successful a batch of ways, due to the fact that you person specified a focused idiosyncratic base,” helium says. “We don't truly privation to effort to beryllium this everything app that beats Google and Yelp. We privation to beryllium the thing astir nutrient find and tracking.”