Porter

We didn’t set out to create a comprehensive foodservice platform; we simply wanted to create the best possible restaurant experience. Porter emerged naturally as Drawn helped design and launch three Eugene, Oregon-area restaurants. When we considered the patron’s experience at each of these restaurants, we recognized that it could be vastly improved. Using our design thinking methodology, we started with empathy and iterative prototyping, which allows plenty of room for observation, feedback, and improvement. Porter underwent months of testing before its launch in January 2020. Since then, we’ve found that Porter patrons are happier patrons; Porter merchants are more efficient and more profitable.

Over the past two years, the Porter platform, which now includes a consumer-facing app, has evolved to solve a number of problems facing the foodservice industry and its patrons: Long lines, limited seating, back-of-house time sucks, multiple card swipes at food halls. Each time a new problem arises, Porter finds a nifty solution — even eliminating inconveniences that we’d all accepted as “part of life,” completely changing the way we experience, well, experiences. Long lines for beer and hot dogs at ball games and concerts? Settling for overpriced room service on business trips? All things of the past thanks to Porter, which now partners with hotels and stadiums in addition to restaurants, breweries, food halls, specialty retail businesses, and other event centers.

Like any good software platform, Porter will continue to evolve, but today, you can think of it as the ultimate concierge service: Convenient, thoughtful, invisible, and at your beck and call. It connects users with what they need most in the moment and quietly eliminates all of those things that stand in the way of fully enjoying what they came to experience.