Flip creator gets into the grilled cheese business, Sequoia invests

Well, I <i>do</i> like grilled cheese, and I'm happy to have five more opening in the SF Bay Area (please be Berkeley, please be Berkeley) but... really? Sequoia Capital funds grilled cheese restaurants nowadays?<p>I mean, apart from anything else it's going to make 'em look especially silly if it fails. I can see the annual report now. "This year we made $50 billion from five IPOs in the computer-aided drug discovery, computational nanotech, and metamaterials sectors. We also wrote off $10 million we invested in a grilled cheese chain."

It would be even cooler if a quadcopter delivered your grilled cheese sandwich within minutes no matter where you were. Why doesn't that exist yet?

I was thinking of starting a company that sells pet supplies to retail customers by way of a website. Think I'll be able to secure VC funding?

Reminiscent of Starbucks' "Mobile Pour" joke ... which isn't that far from viable in a high-dollar high-traffic area.<p><a href="http://www.starbucks.com/blog/introducing-starbucks-mobile-pour" rel="nofollow">http://www.starbucks.com/blog/introducing-starbucks-mobile-p...</a>

It's an interesting angle here...<p>When someone wants to eat, they pay immediately by mobile in a quick and easy way (hopefully), and hence lock themselves into not being able to change their minds, or going somewhere else, or not going anywhere but home.

I don't mean to be dense... but why would I want to order food on my phone? I'm reminded of Paul Graham's office hours video on TC. He asked one of the founders if his product solved the biggest problem in his life. I don't think there's a single person on Earth whose biggest problem in life is, "I have to tell the cashier what I want to eat before I can get fast food."

I know restaurant names are often re-used, but I wanted point out there is already an awesome gourmet grilled cheese restaurant called "Melt".[1]<p>see <a href="http://www.meltbarandgrilled.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.meltbarandgrilled.com</a><p>[1] I guess he called his "The Melt"<p>edit: first hit in Google for "The Melt" as well.

Well, Chuck E Cheese was founded by Nolan Bushnell who before that founded Atari, so it might just work!

I make a pretty mean sandwich, with oven-fresh bread, mozzarella, tomatoes, and prosciutto, with a bit of salt and pepper for seasoning. Anyone care to fund me?<p>I'll name my shop "Panini Veri" (non quelle schifezze spacciate per panini italiani!)

He could at least deliver to arbitrary locations like "Ronnie" the underground cheese griller in NYC.<p><a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/he_making_gouda_livin_CbUxrE7kGNTMUQch9afQlJ" rel="nofollow">http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/he_making_gouda...</a><p><a href="http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/09/21/am-nycs-undreground-grilled-cheese/" rel="nofollow">http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/09/21/am...</a><p>He was covered quite a bit last year for taking orders via text message and for being mildly subversive of the NYC health department.

The article on one side and the serious comments on the other side have me really torn, please help me - this is satire right? Right???

All the restaurant-related startups and announcements lately are an almost-daily reminder for me that when you have a good idea, jump on it.<p>Ah well. I didn't have the contacts to pull it off, and it was only half an idea. :)

I wonder if he was inspired by NYC's Underground Grilled Cheese: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1713815" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1713815</a>

there is no tech bubble.

Any idea how much he paid for <a href="http://melt.com" rel="nofollow">http://melt.com</a> ? Is it just me or do there seem to be a lot of high-profile domain name purchases lately? (though I say that, only color and melt come to mind immediately although I'm sure there are some others... I know Pizza.com sold for $2.5m, which is ridiculous considering what they are doing with that name)

Best. Headline. Ever.

So when Sequoia is investing in a fast casual restaurant, can we say that the bubble is now officially in play? I understand wacky tech ideas no one understands, but a restaurant? Really?