Alex Canter On Taking His Family's 92-Year-Old Canter's Deli Digital

David Shultz

David Shultz reports on clean technology and electric vehicles, among other industries, for dot.LA. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Outside, Nautilus and many other publications.

Alex Canter speaks at the Summit
Image by David Ruano

For true Angelenos, Canter’s Deli should need no introduction. The 92-year old restaurant seated in the central Los Angeles remains a staple of the community and a piece of the city’s identity. In a conversation with dot.LA CEO Sam Adams, founder of Nextbite, Alex Canter, explained how he’s bringing his family’s iconic restaurant into the modern age.


Nextbite is a virtual restaurant platform that helps restaurants connect with delivery apps like Uber Eats or DoorDash and provides opportunities for existing kitchens to drive new business by operating as ghost kitchens for delivery-only brands. If a steakhouse or a fine dining establishment has a slow day or downtime, they now have the option to fulfill online orders for delivery-only brands, expanding their sales and business–often by upwards of 30%, said Canter.

A venture that was initially a tough sell for the 4th generation Canter.

“I used to hear a lot, ‘If it’s not broke don’t fix it,’ but that drove me nuts,” he said. But like with so many other things, COVID changed the landscape and made the value of his business proposal readily apparent. “2020 was a devastating year for the restaurant industry. All of a sudden every single restaurant was scrambling to implement an omni-channel delivery service,” Canter told Adams on the mainstage at the Petersen Museum in Los Angeles. “In March of 2020 we signed up more restaurants than in the previous year combined.”

Spurred by the pandemic, Nextbite’s growth accelerated rapidly and Canter brought in investors from Softbank in a deal worth $120 million. The company expanded into collaborations with celebrities, including a “stoner brand” with Whiz Khalifa called “Packed Bowls” that caters to the predilections of cannabis aficionados and college kids. Think tater tots, PB&J, and mac and cheese topped with chicken nuggets.

Celebrities starting restaurants, however, is not a new trend. But as Canter pointed out, with the business moving to the ghost kitchen model, creating a new brand from scratch has never been easier or come with lower risk. And as celebrities had to cancel tours and events, the new revenue stream from such ventures became increasingly attractive.

“Open up DoorDash tonight, scroll through, find something that looks interesting and exciting,” Canter said. “It might not have a physical location, but that doesn’t really matter in today’s virtual world.”

Subscribe to our newsletter to catch every headline.

LA Tech ‘Moves’: Deep 6 AI and Point Predictive Gain New CROs

Decerry Donato

Decerry Donato is a reporter at dot.LA. Prior to that, she was an editorial fellow at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.

LA Tech ‘Moves’: Deep 6 AI and Point Predictive Gain New CROs
LA Tech ‘Moves’:

“Moves,” our roundup of job changes in L.A. tech, is presented by Interchange.LA, dot.LA's recruiting and career platform connecting Southern California's most exciting companies with top tech talent. Create a free Interchange.LA profile here—and if you're looking for ways to supercharge your recruiting efforts, find out more about Interchange.LA's white-glove recruiting service by emailing Sharmineh O’Farrill Lewis (sharmineh@dot.la). Please send job changes and personnel moves to moves@dot.la.

***

Read moreShow less

This Week in ‘Raises’: Britive Secures $20.5M, Mad Rabbit Lands $10M

Decerry Donato

Decerry Donato is a reporter at dot.LA. Prior to that, she was an editorial fellow at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.

This Week in ‘Raises’: Britive Secures $20.5M, Mad Rabbit Lands $10M
This Week in ‘Raises’:

A local cloud identity security platform raised fresh funding to expand customer interest in the company’s intelligent privileged access management platform, while one tattoo aftercare company raised its largest funding round to date with the help from Mark Cuban and other notable investors to expand its product line, increase marketing efforts and grow its team.

***

Read moreShow less

Relativity Space Launches World’s First 3D-Printed Rocket, But Falls Short of Orbit

Samson Amore

Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College and previously covered technology and entertainment for TheWrap and reported on the SoCal startup scene for the Los Angeles Business Journal. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.

Relativity Space Launches World’s First 3D-Printed Rocket, But Falls Short of Orbit
Photo: Relativity Space

The largest 3D-printed object to ever fly had liftoff yesterday as Long Beach-based Relativity Space launched its Terran 1 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

Terran 1 lifted off from Cape Canaveral at around 7 p.m. PST March 22. It was Relativity’s third attempt at sending Terran 1 to the cosmos and the nighttime launch was quite a sight to behold. The clarity of the night sky was perfect to see the blue jets of flame cascading out of Terran 1’s nine Aeon 1 engines, all 3D-printed, as the rocket took off.

Read moreShow less
https://twitter.com/samsonamore
samsonamore@dot.la
RELATEDEDITOR'S PICKS
LA TECH JOBS
interchangeLA
Trending