Best of Which Came First

This month on Hospitality Hangout, Michael Schatzberg “The Restaurant Guy” and Jimmy Frischling “The Finance Guy” are taking a break from their usual interview episodes and bringing you a Best Of season of all your favorite segments. They bring back “Best Of” old favorites such as “Best of On The Road” and “Top of the Tech Stack.”

In this episode they feature a Best Of Which Came First with special guest and Co Founder & CEO at Chowly, Inc., Sterling Douglass. Frischling says, “the idea for this segment came about over a common joke that the only other industry slower to embrace technology behind hospitality is coal mining. This got them thinking, is hospitality that far behind or actually ahead of the game? Each guest on Season 6 got to take their very best guess on whether hospitality was ahead of the game, or not, in a string of fun questions.

Here are a few of the Best of Questions:

Which came first, the first online pizza hut delivery order or the first online amazon order?
Which came first, the digital menu board or the first digital billboard?
Which came first, the restaurant drive-thru or the bank drive-thru?
Which came first, the automated baggage claim at airports or the supermarket conveyor belt checkout lane?
Which came first, the ability to make a restaurant reservation online or the ability to make an airline reservation online?
Which came first, the car wash or the dishwasher?


The first question went to Evan DeSantola, CEO of Agot. Which came first, the restaurant drive-thru or the bank drive-thru? The answer is the bank drive-thru. Schatzberg says the first drive-thru in America was Hillcrest State Bank out of Dallas, Texas in 1930. It was Harry and Esther Snyder, of the In-N-Out Burger chain that built the first drive-through restaurant in 1948. Fun fact, so In-N-Out because the restaurant name promised exactly what it delivered: In-N-Out.

The guys close out the Which Came First episode with Robert Earl, Co-founder of Virtual Dining Concepts and Chairman of Earl Enterprises. Earl’s question was which came first, the clothing iron or the waffle iron? The answer is the waffle iron. The waffle iron was created in 1869, by Cornelius Swartwout of Troy, N.Y. The Clothing Iron was not invented for another 13 years when Henry W. Seely patented his electric flatiron on June 6, 1882.

To hear the questions they asked Lindsey Hoell, Founder & CEO of Dispatch Goods, Alonso Castañeda, VP of Brand Development & Strategy at Savory Restaurant Fund, Scott Siegel Co-Founder & CEO of Curbit, Tim McLaughlin, CEO of GoTab, Jon Sherman, Co-Founder and CEO of Sticky’s Finger Joint, John DiLoreto, President of Flipdish US, Danny Klein, Editorial Director at Food News Media, Scott Gladstone, SVP Strategy & Innovation at Dine Brands and Kimberly Smith, CEO of Copia , check out this best of episode on Hospitality Hangout.

Episode Credits:

• Produced by: Branded Hospitality Media
• Hosted by: Michael Schatzberg, JImmy Frischling
• Producer: Julie Zucker
• Creative Director: Adam Levine
• Show Runner: Drewe Raimi
• Post Production: Three Cheers Creative

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