The restaurant business is brutal. Anyone who’s ever worked a double shift in a hot kitchen knows the feeling of staring at a stack of tickets while the dishwasher just... didn't show up. It’s chaos. For a few years, a startup called Pared promised to fix that exact nightmare. They were going to be the "Uber for restaurants," a gig-economy solution to the industry's perennial staffing crisis.
It worked. Until it didn't.
If you were in the New York or Philly food scene around 2017 to 2019, you probably saw their logo everywhere. The pitch was simple: restaurants need bodies, and thousands of hospitality pros want flexible shifts. By 2018, they were raising millions, backed by big names like True Ventures and Bain Capital Ventures. They weren't just a temp agency; they were a tech platform trying to institutionalize "staging" (the industry term for a brief, often unpaid trial) into a paid, scalable model.
The Problem Pared Tried to Solve (and Why it Failed)
The core issue is "the churn." Restaurants lose staff at a rate that would make most tech CEOs faint. We're talking 75% to 150% annual turnover in some segments. When your lead line cook quits on a Friday morning, you’re basically screwed.
Pared stepped into that vacuum. They didn't just provide "labor." They provided vetted pros.
You could open the app, tap a few buttons, and a prep cook would arrive four hours later. It felt like magic. Founders Will Moore and David Scali—who actually had real industry experience at places like Thomas Keller’s Per Se—knew the pain points. They weren't just some Silicon Valley guys trying to "disrupt" an industry they didn't understand. They knew that a kitchen is a delicate ecosystem. If you drop a bad apple into a high-functioning line, the whole service collapses.
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But here’s the thing about "disrupting" labor: it’s incredibly expensive.
To make the platform work, Pared had to solve the "chicken and egg" problem. You need enough restaurants to keep the pros busy, and enough pros to make the restaurants trust the app. They spent a lot of money—roughly $13 million in their Series A alone—trying to bridge that gap. But the margins in the restaurant world are razor-thin. Most owners are fighting for a 5% profit margin. Asking them to pay a premium for a middle-man app is a tough sell when the rent is due.
What People Get Wrong About the Pivot
A lot of people think Pared just vanished when the pandemic hit. That's a bit of a simplification. Honestly, the cracks were showing before March 2020.
Scaling a labor marketplace is a nightmare of logistics and liability. You aren't just moving data; you're moving humans who get stuck in traffic, get sick, or—let’s be real—occasionally flake. Every time a "Pro" didn't show up for a shift, it cost Pared massive amounts of brand equity. Trust is the only currency in a professional kitchen.
When COVID-19 effectively deleted the restaurant industry overnight, the gig-labor side of the business became untenable. They couldn't send people into kitchens that were legally required to be closed.
So, they pivoted.
They shifted toward "Pared Pro," trying to build a professional network—a sort of LinkedIn specifically for the hospitality world. The idea was to help workers manage their reputations and find permanent roles. It was a smart move on paper. The industry needed a central hub. But the momentum was gone. By the time the world reopened, the labor market had changed. Everyone was hiring. You didn't need an app to find a job; you just needed to walk down the street.
The Reality of the "Gig" Kitchen
I’ve talked to chefs who used the service. Some loved it. They’d get a prep cook who could knock out three cases of mirepoix in two hours and then disappear. It was efficient.
Others hated it.
"You can't just drop a stranger into a station and expect them to know the flow," one executive chef told me. "Every kitchen has a language. Every kitchen has its own weird way of organizing the walk-in." This is the fundamental flaw in the "Uber-ification" of specialized labor. Driving a car from point A to point B is a standardized skill. Executing a specific menu under the pressure of a Saturday night rush is an art form. Pared was trying to commoditize something that is inherently personal.
Why the Failure Matters Now
We’re seeing a resurgence of these ideas today, but they look different. Companies like Instawork or Qwick are playing in a similar space, but they've shifted more toward large-scale catering and stadiums. Why? Because those environments are more standardized. A stadium doesn't care if a dishwasher knows the "soul" of the menu. They just need clean plates.
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Pared tried to conquer the neighborhood bistro. That was their mistake. Those restaurants don't just need "labor"; they need team members.
The legacy of the company is a cautionary tale for the "SaaS-ification" of everything. You can't solve every human problem with an algorithm and a clean UI. Sometimes, the problem is just that the work is hard, the pay is low, and the culture is demanding. No app can fix a broken business model.
How to Navigate the Post-Pared Landscape
If you're a restaurant owner or a worker looking at the current gig economy, there are specific things you should look for before signing up for the "next big thing."
- Transparency in Fees: If an app is taking more than 20-30%, it’s likely not sustainable for the business or the worker.
- The Insurance Factor: One of Pared's biggest hurdles was Occupational Accident Insurance. If you’re a gig worker, never work a shift without verifying who covers you if you cut your finger or slip on grease.
- Vetting over Volume: Look for platforms that require a practical test or a "stage" before letting people on the app. Volume-based apps lead to low-quality service and burnout.
- Hyper-Local Focus: The most successful staffing solutions right now aren't national behemoths; they are local networks built on actual relationships.
The story of Pared isn't just about a failed app. It's about the realization that some industries are built on sweat and presence, and those things don't always scale. You can't download a culture. You can't disruption-proof a 14-hour shift over a hot stove.
If you are looking for staffing solutions today, prioritize direct-to-worker relationships. The middleman might make the booking easier, but they rarely make the soup taste better. Focus on building a "bench" of reliable part-timers you pay directly. It’s more work, but it’s the only way to ensure your kitchen doesn't collapse when the next "disruptor" goes offline.