Restaurant review mainstay Zagat is changing homes: Google, which has owned Zagat since 2011, has sold the brand to food discovery site The Infatuation for an undisclosed sum.
According to The Infatuation, acquiring the legendary brand - which was founded in 1979 by Tim and Nina Zagat - will “help continue the company’s mission to create the largest, most influential and most useful restaurant discovery platform in the world.”
“Iconic brands don’t become available very often, and Zagat is about as iconic as it gets,” says The Infatuation co-founder and CEO Chris Stang. “It is the perfect complement to what we have been building at The Infatuation.”
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The Infatuation, which launched in 2009, reaches more than three million people per month and is known for its young-skewing, social media-engaged audience.
With Zagat, the two brands will maintain separate identities: The Infatuation will focus on editorial-led content and situational reviews and guides, while Zagat will expand user surveys and rely on tech enhancements to strengthen its position against other crowdsourced restaurant review sites.
When Google purchased Zagat for $151 million, the idea made sense to bring the long-standing title into the digital age, and the review brand’s content was integrated into the search giant’s Maps feature.
Not long after, Google also purchased Frommer's Travel Guides for $22 million in 2012, only to sell the brand back to founder Arthur Frommer less than a year later.
Interestingly, in the deal back, Google retained all of Frommer's social media accounts and data, with Frommer's Twitter account rebranding under @ZagatTravel.
In 2016, Google debuted a new app and design for Zagat’s website, but there’s otherwise been little fanfare from Google surrounding the product since its acquisition.
In a statement, Google vice president of product and engineering Jen Fitzpatrick says: "Zagat has helped us provide useful and relevant dining results for users across our various products. The Infatuation is an innovative company that will be a terrific home for the Zagat brand."