Choosing from New York City's nearly 25,000 restaurants can be a daunting task, especially when you're trying to impress a first date (or investor) or entertain family visiting from out of town. This weekend, a new app was released that aims to address that exact problem.
The Scene, an iOS-only “pocket concierge service,” uses machine learning to match users with places to eat and dance in New York City.
Scene pulls recommendations for users based on a variety of factors, including the type of event they're planning (dinner, brunch, drinks, etc.), the type of outing (date, birthday, anniversary, other special occasion), food preferences, party size, budget, date, time, location, and more.
One standout feature is The Scene's “Vibe” setting, which allows users to curate their preferred vibe by finding very specific suggestions like “Instagram-worthy” clubs, rooftop restaurants, bars with good music, and more.
The app lists the options and provides descriptions, reservation times, opening hours, links to menus and websites, etc. Scene also integrates with Instagram and Google to provide reviews and other information.
The Scene launched as a web platform in 2021 and has since gained around 12,800 users, and its developers hope to reach more New York-based users in the form of an app.
Image credit: The Scene
The service was founded by Riddhima Kalani, a former personal concierge who spent 10 years helping clients in India, Singapore, Dubai and London. When she arrived in New York, Kalani realized there was a “serious gap in the market when it came to the social planning process,” she told TechCrunch.
“[P]People love discovering lesser known spots. [so] The Scene's larger goal is to democratize restaurant demand across New York City and create more long-term, inconsistent demand. [unfamiliar] “You want to check out new places, but you don't want the embarrassment of appearing shady,” she says. “Scene lets you input your vibe preferences and shows you places that fit that vibe, so you don't have to worry about that. No question marks.”
The app features 550 places around Manhattan and Brooklyn, ranging from favorites like Hearsay, Little Sister, Le Bain, Somewhere Nowhere, and Jack's Wife Freda to “underrated” gems like Arte Cafe, Mémé, and Pastai. Nearly 100 restaurants in Queens are also featured.
The Scene plans to expand to 22 more cities over the next five years.
Image credit: The Scene
Kalani believes hyper-personalization is what differentiates The Scene from direct competitors Bucket Listers and Secret NYC, as well as restaurant booking apps OpenTable and Resy. The Scene also offers custom recommendations for clubs and other nightlife activities, giving it a wider range of selection than restaurant booking apps.
“Other apps don't ask you what kind of vibe you like when you go out. This is a better algorithm that focuses on democratizing demand instead of always showing you the same top places,” Kalani added, explaining that she created her own training data for the machine learning model based on her own experience and fine-tuned the model to deliver results that met her criteria.
The app currently has limited functionality, but plans to gradually introduce AI-powered features. For example, The Scene is building a recommendation search engine trained to understand natural language such as “dinner for four in Soho at 7pm on Saturday.” The model understands that “ppl” means person. It is also developing an AI concierge chatbot that will act as a private assistant for users and provide a personalized conversational experience. Kalani recently hired Arneesh Aima (Chief Technology Officer) and iOS developer Anagha Jayaprakah to help with app development.
The Scene is currently bootstrapped but hopes to raise funding in the near future.