There is a moment, usually sometime on a Tuesday afternoon, when a person with a good income and somewhere to be on Friday opens an app and decides where to eat. They choose a restaurant, choose a time, and confirm. The decision is made before a card is ever tapped, before a bill is presented, before a loyalty point is earned or redeemed.
American Express has decided that moment is worth $700 million.
The company announced today it will acquire TheFork — Tripadvisor's European restaurant reservation and management platform — in an all-cash transaction. TheFork connects millions of diners with more than 50,000 restaurants across 11 European countries. With the purchase, Amex's total bookable dining venues rise to 75,000, adding to a portfolio that already includes the Resy and Tock platforms.
The headlines are calling it a dining expansion. It is that. But it is also something more considered — a deliberate move to own the layer of the consumer economy that sits upstream of everything else.
