What is EatWith.com?
EatWith, which is found online at EatWith.com, is a new company whose aim is to provide people all around the world the ability to find authentic home cooked meals, set in an intimate and social environment. Founded in the year 2012 by two Israeli entrepreneurs, Shemer Schwarz and Guy Michlin, EatWith has grown from its’ first dinners in Tel Aviv, to meals in over 200 cities across 50 countries around the world.
Having been dubbed the “Airbnb of food,” EatWith enables the guests, to not only enjoy delicious home cooked meals, but also to connect and create lasting friendships with new people, gain a real and unique insight into various different cultures, and to have a totally authentic dining experience. If you are a tourist, you will get to experience new foods in a comfortable setting, far from the usual tourist traps. and you’ll also get to know a lot more about the city you are visiting. As for the hosts, they get the opportunity to do more of what they actually love doing; throw dinner parties, cook world class meals, make money and meet new people along the way. That being said, it’s important to note that if a host happens to undercook a meal and the guest(s) gets sick (which is very rare), there is a 3rd party $1 Million insurance plan in place, to keep the hosts from feeling the heat.
How Does It Work?
The concept of EatWith is pretty simple; you visit the website (at EatWith.com), choose your location, browse through the wide selection of EatWith verified chefs/hosts, and then book their meal online. The meals are served in the host’s home and each host is vetted by EatWith in advance to make sure the whole dining experience is safe and delicious for the guests.
The EatWith team starts the verification process by evaluating each host’s application, and then an EatWith employee visits the applicant’s home to test the food quality, safety, personality, cleanliness and uniqueness of their hosting space, and various other factors. The EatWith team then schedules a demo dinner, and the hosts are evaluated through the EatWith community’s honest reviews and ratings, which are then carefully scrutinized by EatWith’s quality control team. If the host has high enough ratings and excellent reviews, they will pass and become a full fledged EatWith host. According to the founders of the company, only about 4% of the people who apply to become EatWith hosts, actually make it onto their site.