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Let’s make one thing clear: PreferDine is not just another social buy discount site. Created by Jonathan Honig, whose family owns award-winning Honig Vineyard and Winery in Napa Valley, PreferDine is an online platform designed to connect consumers to the restaurants and wineries they love. Through interfacing with the site, users get exclusive, limited offers from high-end restaurants and boutique wineries. Counting Melisse Executive Chef/Owner Josiah Citrin and Hanzell Vineyard President Jean Arnold Sessions among his advisors, Honig designed the service to offer the best-of-the-best in food and wine. PreferDine will launch July 15, 2010 in Los Angeles. Users can sign up for the service starting July 14. Honig plans to expand the service to other cities in the U.S. over the next year.
How does PreferDine work? Honig consults his friends and contacts in the food and wine business that he has cultivated over a lifetime to create offers that will appeal to the foodie and wine snob in all of us. When the details are solid, Honig blasts out an email to PreferDine subscribers. Because only a limited number of offers are available, subscribers must act fast to snag that restaurant reservation or case of wine. To keep subscribers on their toes, there will be no regular schedule of offer alerts. Restaurants and wineries have exclusive relationships with PreferDine; these offers are not available anywhere else.
“What makes PreferDine stand out is the quality of our partners and the uniqueness of our offers,” explains Honig. “I’ll only recommend wines that I’ve tasted or restaurants that I’ve eaten at, which means that there will be a limited number of merchants on the site.” Because Honig is limiting the number of merchants he works with, each merchant may offer multiple deals over a period of time. Through PreferDine, Honig has created a “club” of merchants who are a tight-knit group of successful restaurateurs and winemakers. Each restaurant and winery is among their peers and can use PreferDine to market their business to a select clientele who is familiar with luxury brands. The offers, which may range from a two-for-one tasting menu at a fine dining restaurant to a discount on a half-case of wine, will be specific to each merchant.
“I’ve known Jonathan for more than a decade and have always sold Honig wines at Melisse,” states Citrin. “Building relationships with my customers is very important to me and PreferDine is another way to connect with them.” Other Los Angeles-area restaurants that will be featured on PreferDine include Fig, Innovative Dining Group, Joe’s, Josie, Mako, One Pico, Ortolan, Pearl Dragon and Wilshire.
Under the moniker “PreferWine” Honig will offer access to stock at boutique wineries not available anywhere else. Focusing on Napa area wineries (for now), wine ordered through PreferWine will ship anywhere USPS allows (or orders may be picked up at the winery). According to Judd Finkelstein of Judd’s Hill Winery, “PreferDine offers us a great opportunity to offer our small production wine to people who can’t make the trip out to our vineyard. Because we know Jonathan and his family so well, we know that we’re being taken care of and the other wineries and restaurants featured on the site are among our peers.” Wineries that will be featured on PreferWine include Broman, Buoncristiani, Courtesan, Hanzell, Judd’s Hill, Katarina, and Renteria.
About PreferDine
PreferDine is an exclusive club of elite restaurants & wineries that offer unparalleled offers to its savvy consumers. To sign up, visit preferdine.com; twitter: @preferdine.
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