Launch HN: MAC'D (YC S18) – Fast-Casual, Build-Your-own Mac and Cheese
We’re Chen-Chen and Antony from MAC’D, a fast-casual, build-your-own mac & cheese restaurant. Pick one of our six cheese sauces, a pasta base, add unlimited toppings like roasted broccoli and mushrooms, and top it off with anything from truffle oil to hot cheetos. We’re currently in San Francisco and Portland.
MAC’D was inspired by a mac & cheese restaurant called Homeroom, which Chen-Chen frequented while at Cal. Fast-casual has consistently been the fastest growing segment in the food and bev industry, so it made sense to apply that spin to an old-school comfort food like mac & cheese. It’s a social, nostalgic, late-night meal that’s both familiar in taste and unique in experience.
After graduating from Berkeley, Chen-Chen was a management consultant, but quickly realized that consulting wasn’t the career for him. Together with a part-time partner, he began drafting up ideas for a restaurant concept. The one that struck a chord was mac & cheese. After confirming high demand through several pop-ups in early 2017, Chen-Chen and his partner opened MAC’D’s first brick & mortar in SF’s Marina District. About 6 months in, Chen-Chen’s partner made a decision to pursue business school, and Chen-Chen ran the restaurant solo until opening up a second location. Antony was a friend of Chen-Chen’s and had been following MAC’D’s progress while a software engineer at AWS. He worked in restaurants throughout his life and after a brief stint as a chef in Milan, knew he wanted a career in the food industry. Chen-Chen had been pretty spread thin running two locations with eyes on a third, and good timing on both ends led to our partnership.
In a little over a year, we’ve successfully bootstrapped two locations in SF and have served over 75,000 meals. We’re profitable and have a validated concept in a city with among the highest costs in the US. We want to continue to grow and expand to other cities.
In Portland, we’re using low capital commissary kitchens to explore new food markets through catering and delivery. Commissaries give a low managerial overhead and remove front of house staffing / building costs. It’s a way of getting into new markets quickly and intelligently, with the goal of proving a market and getting our name out before investing in brick & mortar spaces.
We’ve identified roughly thirty cities across the US as potential locations for MAC’D. Our customers range from families looking for a predictable meal to more boisterous late night crowds. Our target markets are college towns, cities in the south and midwest, and ones with progressive food scenes, both in and outside the United States. We’re also ramping up on catering, so if you’re in SF and Portland, reach out! Our catering form is on www.getmacd.com. We’re also on instagram @getmacd.
41 comments
[ 2.3 ms ] story [ 84.8 ms ] threadWhy did you choose to join YC with a restaurant business?
Is there a technology differentiator in your business?
I have a lot of experience in the on-demand food space and your method of using commissary kitchens is very smart and will allow you to access tens of thousands of customers without an expensive build out.
I would guess net (after paying the delivery platforms for distribution) you're saving about 10% once a kitchen is operating at a reasonable scale.
Is that a model you're looking to expand into other concepts? My understanding is the entrepreneurs going the commissary route are operating multiple "restaurants" simultaneously out of a space since there isn't any reason not to.
We believe that YC builds companies that are lean, scale efficiently, and build products that people want. We felt like we had a product that people wanted, and wanted a bit more guidance on how to grow.
Our technology differentiation is taking advantage of the growth of delivery platforms to scale our business via commissary kitchens.
We've talked briefly about expanding to other concepts once we've established a network of staff and kitchens, but are looking to focus on the MAC'D brand and product first. But in the world of food, who knows!
I'm reading this as having commissaries specially for take-out/delivery apps to make use of, rather than being for dine-in space (and presumably a level of prep work), which sounds like an interesting concept. I own a food truck and have been considering how to go about having availability on delivery apps myself, definitely great food for thought. Best of luck on your endeavor!
Also nice site.
Definitely checking it out soon!
In other areas removed from social drivers, we'll spend less time on our viral social media presence and more on grassroots marketing and community engagement.
It's our thought that if we can make it (twice) in SF, we can make it in other areas where the unit economics are so much better.
Do you offer an option to lobsterate my mac n' cheese?
High rents and limited food options (so they went into burgers) and the high rent locations they took in suburban malls often came with contracts which explicitly stated they couldn't sell burgers due to competition with other mall burger places.
Looks like this is very different in that they're mostly selling through Uber Eats et al and some locations. They can easily expand to selling anything they want out of these commissaries.
Its pretty delicious but also really heavy. I noticed that it was difficult finding something that I'd want to eat on a recurring basis, and that must have been uniform because we stopped getting catering from them after 6 months or so.
I'm curious to know if you've seen recurring business from customers or just getting new business because its a new concept and people love mac and cheese and want to try.
While there are trends in fast casual, I'd say there are also trends in healthier eating. Have you thought about how to provide healthier / lighter options to encourage more habitual ordering from existing customers?
Also another idea is food trucks as mobile storefront. A pizza truck a block away from me bought access to an unused parking lot, and while they do provide walk-ups, the majority of orders are fulfilled by delivery companies. Since they are located in a parking lot on a busy street, I will often see 4-5 Uber / Postmates / Eat24 cars lined up waiting for their quick-fire pizzas.
Like most restaurants with new concepts, we need to draw a line between catering to everyone and sticking to our brand. Out of the above ideas, we'd want to experiment with smaller portions. But we'd like to continue getting feedback on our current concept before making these changes.
Curious to see how hard it is to manage quality of food across the states.
Interesting concept, best of luck!
Do you have any moral concerns with this company? We’re a massively obese nation...
Would YC fund a cocaine delivery company if it was legal and profitable? A news site that fuels revenue by spreading hate? Military recruiters in poor neighborhoods as a service?
How about we just let people make their own informed choices? I love mac & cheese and would happily use this service if I were in their target area. I also made my family sauteed broccoli and rice for dinner last night. Although you might complain about the freshly baked peach pie and vanilla ice cream I made for dessert!
Not everything needs to be a hand-wringing concern about the future of civilization; sometimes we just need to enjoy ourselves.
> Our technology differentiation is taking advantage of the growth
What does this actually mean? Reading between the lines, sounds like you're going for a standard cloud kitchen model. Besides nicer packaging for delivery, seems like you'll be operating a regular kitchen that does take out. Some platforms like Uber supply restaurants with analytics and data for optimize the menu, I'm curious what you guys planned on doing in-house that was tech heavy.
Don't get me wrong - having a high-growth, low-tech company is amazing - but I'm sensing that the tech-side of this business is overstated by your comment.
I wondered why Peet's Coffee (200+ locations worldwide) still uses paper checklists to ensure employees are following procedures, and it may have remained archaic because it's physical and familiar. But that's not the direction we want to go.
Where does this idea of "mac and cheese" as a specialty come from? Who's going to find this stuff "nostalgic" and "familiar in taste"? Wouldn't your restaurant be equally "fast-casual" and more interesting and high quality with a traditional curated menu of good pasta recipes instead of build-your-own cheese and "anything"?
While there are plenty of people who will, and you will certainly be successful - I just have "price fatigue" where one can't seemingly even feed themselves for an affordable rate.
The cost of food is too high.
Let's assume the average cost of a meal from your place is $15 as is generally what appears to be the average cost of a meal anywhere, eating anywhere is just so expensive.
Even a "meal" from McDonald's in a really crappy location such as 24th and mission in SF is $11.
I'm sure people will always pay for the convenience, I just can't justify paying premium prices like $15 for Mac n cheese.
I have three kids.
Now imagine a family where each in the family can't be together for, say, lunch.
Each parent needs to eat, and each child needs to eat.
If all members of the family were to go out and need to buy lunch - even if it were $10 per lunch and the family had to buy 4 lunches twice a week....
So, I just think pricing for food these days, across the board, is unsustainable.