New York–based restaurant loyalty app Blackbird celebrates its one-year anniversary in Charleston on Sept. 28. Over the past year, 90 Charleston restaurants have joined the app to offer users the ability to earn points and gain access to exclusive benefits.
Ben Leventhal, founder of Blackbird — and co-founder of the reservation platform Resy and the pioneering digital media brand Eater — chose Charleston as Blackbird’s third location after New York and San Francisco.
“Charleston is one of the most exciting food cities in the country,” he said. “The city’s blend of history, community and a deep respect for independent restaurants makes it a natural fit for Blackbird. It’s a market where diners are curious, loyal and love discovering new experiences – exactly the kind of environment where great dining thrives.”
Reflecting on year one in the Lowcountry, Leventhal noted Charleston has been Blackbird’s most successful city launch thus far: “We’re not surprised it’s clicked, but I’m not sure we would have predicted that it is outpacing New York in terms of speed of adoption. But maybe we shouldn’t be shocked: Charleston diners love supporting local restaurants that love them back.”
Charleston City Paper spoke with three restaurateurs who use Blackbird to see how the app has worked for their businesses over the past year.
Specials and benefits at local restaurants
Nayda Freire, owner of Renzo, noted Blackbird has been beneficial.
“We mostly use Blackbird two-fold — as a way to consistently reward our regulars and as a marketing tool to incentivize new guests to have dinner with us,” she said.
“As a rule, we do not pay for advertising or partnerships, so we tend to look for more organic means of expanding our influence. Partnering with Blackbird has given us opportunities to host promotional campaigns, ticketed experiential events and to offer our own staff an easy way to accumulate points to use at other Blackbird restaurants.”
Freire said the most surprising aspect of Blackbird is the diversity of the customer base and that users are not just younger or in the food and beverage industry.
When it comes to deciding on what specials to offer, the Renzo team tries to pick deals that don’t add stress to the kitchen team. It offered a complimentary pizza with check-in during the early days of the app and found, even though it was a record-breaking sales night, that such an offer was not sustainable or beneficial. Now it offers items like complimentary glasses of wine which provides the opportunity to highlight specific bottles that may be new and exciting for guests to try.
Over on Coming Street, the Tippling House has also seen great benefits from its presence on Blackbird.
“It opened doors for us to new audiences,” said owner Matthew Conway, noting the app “created buzz at slower times of the week and year and brought in revenue at times very beneficial to our business.”
While many people use Blackbird on specific promo nights, Conway said he has found that on any given night, guests tap in for points or use their $FLY points on dinner or a bottle of wine.
Bryn Kelly, senior partner of Uptown Hospitality Group, said Blackbird has been especially helpful at Bodega. The restaurant is one of the local coffee shops included in Blackbird’s Breakfast Club pass, which gives users a coffee or tea at participating spots every day (until 11am) for $25 per month.
“We see anywhere from 10 to 20 people in the early hours of the business day, seven days a week, where we usually wouldn’t,” Kelly said. “Most of these customers have become ‘regulars’ and often grab something to go besides their morning coffee or tea.”
Kelly also mentioned Blackbird has helped get new customers which is financially advantageous for the restaurant.
“We had customers who have never been to our location (who now are) trying our food and coffee for the first time, and they have certainly been back,” Kelly said.
“Having the option to use Blackbird Pay as a payment method has us on the top of list for tourists and locals alike, since some consider $Fly points to be ‘free money,’ but it’s really just points they’ve earned by checking in all over town. With a lower processing rate than credit cards, it’s beneficial to the business as well.”
Blackbird looks ahead
More special events for the app are planned this fall. There is a Blackbird Club members night at Tutti Pizza on Sept. 30 to celebrate the one-year anniversary, and an industry night at Leon’s is planned during the Food & Wine Classic in Charleston in November.
And beyond this fall: the sky’s the limit for Blackbird in Charleston, Leventhal said.
“The next chapter is about deepening our presence,” he said. “That means more restaurants, more diners using Blackbird Pay regularly and more local experiences that celebrate Charleston’s food culture.
“We want to continue building loyalty infrastructure that makes dining in Charleston even more rewarding, both for guests and restaurants. We’re grateful to our partners and diners in Charleston for welcoming us so warmly in our first year, and we’re just getting started.”
How does the Blackbird app work?
After creating an account on the app, diners check into participating restaurants by scanning the Blackbird puck (which is usually located right next to the credit card terminal). They earn points and gain access to exclusive benefits like last-minute tables, welcome drinks, off-menu items and more. Users also accrue $FLY points, which they can use like money at locations that are on the app.
“The easiest way to think about it is this: Blackbird uses blockchain technology to power rewards in the form of $FLY points,” explained Leventhal. “For diners, that simply means when you check in and pay with Blackbird, you earn rewards that you can spend across the network.
“The ‘tech’ behind it — things like Coinbase and NFTs — is what makes the system open, portable and transparent. Diners don’t need to understand the backend to benefit. They just use Blackbird like they’d use any other app and the rewards work seamlessly.”
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