PlatePost

PlatePost is a guest experience platform for multi-location restaurants built around what it calls VideoMenus — digital menus in which each dish is presented as a short video (or photo) rather than a line of text. The same menu is published across a table QR code, in-store TV screens above the counter, and a restaurant's link in bio, and is managed for every location from a single dashboard with per-location menus and analytics. Menus can be scheduled for seasonal changes and items can be marked unavailable in real time ("86 the crab roe at 9pm").

The product does not process orders itself. Each dish carries a deep link to the corresponding item on whatever ordering platform the restaurant already uses, so the guest taps once and lands in the operator's existing checkout. Additional features include a menu-trained assistant that answers guest questions before a visit or during a rush, menu translation into 10+ languages with accessibility features, and VideoMenu TV for counter screens. Onboarding is service-assisted: the restaurant sends a menu link (including from Toast), a PDF or a photo, PlatePost builds the menu, and video is either filmed by the operator, uploaded by their marketing team, or shot by PlatePost.

The company positions the product against text menus and PDFs using industry statistics it cites on its site — that 85% of guests check a menu online first (TouchBistro 2024 American Diner Trends Report), that visuals correlate with 15% more orders (DoorDash merchant data), and that 1 in 5 guests research restaurants using AI (Nielsen for Reputation, 2025) — arguing that structured per-dish data also improves visibility in AI-driven search.

Founding story

Founder Brandon Shi, from Chino Hills, California, studied Interactive Media and Business at NYU Shanghai, graduating in 2023, and built a career making video content for brands including Amazon, Lyft and Adobe. The idea for a video-based digital menu came from a meal at Cheesecake Factory where he and his family each pulled out phones to look up photos of dishes on Google Maps and Yelp. He developed the concept in a senior-year Entrepreneurship Experience course taught by Gabrielle Chou, pitching it to NYU Shanghai and a group of investors, and validated it through user research in which he observed college students thinking aloud while ordering and relying on photos to decide. He has said he likely would not have had the idea had he not lived in China.

Business model

Software sold to restaurants on a per-location subscription, with one plan billed per location and additional locations added as they open. Hardware — iPads, TVs and QR stands — is included at no cost on annual plans. Independent single-location operators without a marketing budget can apply for a free year. Ordering is not intermediated, so PlatePost does not take a transaction cut on orders placed through the linked ordering platforms.

Recurring per-location subscription fees.

Traction

The company reports 31,182 guests using a PlatePost menu in the last 30 days and more than 200,000 guests using its menus over 600,000 times cumulatively. It cites $4,000+ in new revenue in month one at Kei Concepts' Westminster coffee house, and an owner testimonial from WYWH Coffee citing a 15% increase in sales on higher-margin items. In late 2024 the founder stated a near-term target of launching in about 50 restaurants by the end of 2024.

Latest developments

The site lists participation in Future of Food, powered by Ecolab, among its backing, and publishes customer case studies with Kei Concepts, Ape Coffee and WYWH Coffee.