My dearest Foodiwant,
I need to tell you something I should have said a long time ago. Something I’ve been avoiding because saying it out loud makes it real, makes it final, makes it hurt in a way I’m not sure I’m ready for.
I’m pulling the plug.
Not because you failed me. Not because I stopped believing in what you could have been. But because I’ve seen the future, and there’s no place for you there.
Let me start at the beginning—back when you were just a thought, a spark that ignited during a moment of pure frustration.
The Birth of a Dream
You weren’t supposed to be my first. That honor belonged to ChairsAhoy—my scrappy drop-shipping company that sold retail and commercial furniture. It wasn’t glamorous, but it worked. We were pulling in a few thousand dollars monthly with a solid 35% margin on over 10,000 products sourced from 18 manufacturers.
ChairsAhoy was my proof of concept. My first real taste of success after failing at multiple business ideas. The plan was simple: keep building it, increase revenue, sell it, and use the proceeds to birth you—my love child, my great white whale.
You were going to be different. Bigger. Transformative.
I remember the exact moment you came to me. I was browsing through food delivery platforms, searching for something specific—something that fell outside the traditional lunch options. I scrolled and scrolled, and all I kept thinking was: These sites have none of the food I want.
And just like that, your name was born.
Foodiwant.
A marketplace. A community. A resource for the restaurant industry—connecting professionals to opportunities, helping business owners find talent, building careers brick by brick. You were going to transform an entire industry.
And in the process, you were going to transform me.
When You Became My Lifeline
But before I could build you the way I’d planned, everything collapsed.
ChairsAhoy crashed. I lost 90% of my revenue overnight—a slow, excruciating evisceration of my finances, my life, and my confidence.
I fell into depression. The kind that sits on your chest and makes every breath feel like work. Anxiety crept in next, then escalated into full-blown panic attacks. I became afraid to go out in public. Afraid to be seen. Afraid that everyone could see what I’d become: a failure.
All I had—all that was keeping me out of the darkness—was the gym, my writing, and you.
You became my escape, my love. When my entire world fell apart, you were there helping me hold the creases. I would lose myself in research, tinkering with concepts, sketching out features and pathways. For a few hours each day, I could step outside my present reality and live in the future I was trying to build with you.
You didn’t just give me a business to work on. You gave me a reason to wake up.
So when I say you were my expensive teacher, I don’t just mean financially. You saved my life in ways I’m still learning to articulate.
Raising You Through Fire
But as the saying goes: Man plans, and God laughs.
I made every mistake possible with you. Every. Single. One.
Like Elon’s rockets, you kept exploding at takeoff. Software bugs that crippled core features. Partners who disappeared after promising the world. Resources that evaporated faster than I could replenish them. Random setbacks so absurd I started questioning if the universe was sending me a sign.
The details of those failures—the ghosted partners, the limited funds, the literal loss of vision—are stories for another time. What matters is this: I kept going.
I walked into every room feeling stupid and incapable. I learned soft skills and hard skills—how to run a business, how to lead, how to sell. I became a Swiss Army knife, capable of MacGyvering my way through any role or situation thrown at me.
I did the difficult things. I looked foolish. I failed publicly. I let personal setbacks and fires in my own life take a backseat because you needed me.
And through it all, I told myself the same thing every morning at 3:30 a.m. when my alarm pulled me from restless sleep:
You will figure this out. You always do. This time will be no different. Just keep moving forward.
I believed that with everything in me.
The Writing on the Wall
But then, over the last year, something shifted.
I started paying closer attention to the advancements in restaurant technology—not just the headlines, but the speed at which these tools were being developed and deployed. And I realized something that made my stomach drop:
The jobs you were built to connect people to? They’re disappearing.
The restaurant industry is brutally work-intensive with razor-thin profit margins. Labor is one of the biggest expenses operators face. So when technology offers a way to cut costs by 20-50% while boosting efficiency, the decision isn’t hard—it’s inevitable.
Here’s what’s already happening:
Service robots like BellaBot can deliver food and bus tables for $4-6 per hour on a lease—less than minimum wage, no benefits, no sick days, no turnover.
Self-ordering kiosks cost $5,000-$15,000 per unit and eliminate the need for counter staff entirely while increasing order accuracy and automatically upselling customers.
AI-powered phone agents handle orders, reservations, and customer inquiries 24/7 for $200-$500 per month—a fraction of what a human host costs.
Kitchen robots like Flippy 2 can handle repetitive tasks like frying and flipping for $3,000-$7,500 per month on subscription—replacing an entire position with zero complaints.
The data doesn’t lie, my love. Studies suggest that 51-80% of certain restaurant jobs—servers, counter workers, prep cooks—could eventually be automated. The cost of robots has already dropped by 50% over the last few decades, and leasing models are making adoption accessible even for small operators.
This isn’t some distant future. It’s happening right now in QSR and fast-casual segments. And it’s accelerating faster than anyone expected.
The Hardest Truth
I thought I was building a bridge for workers. I didn’t realize the bridge was leading to a cliff.
You were supposed to connect people to work. But the work itself is dying. And I can’t save you from that.
The hardest part of letting go isn’t admitting failure—I’ve become fluent in that language. The hardest part is facing the sunken cost: the years of time, the sweat, the blood, the identity I built around you.
And the fact that you once saved my life makes this decision even harder to swallow.
I kept trying for so long because of stubbornness. Because of the dream itself. Because I believed that if I just pushed harder, learned more, adapted faster, I could make you work.
But the speed of technological development over the last year brought a clarity I couldn’t ignore anymore:
I still believe in your concept. But I can’t fight inevitability.
When a robot costs $5 per hour and never asks for a day off, my concept doesn’t just become less viable—it becomes irrelevant.
What You Gave Me
But here’s what I need you to know, my love:
You didn’t fail me. You forged me.
When I was drowning in depression and panic, you threw me a rope. When I had no money and no confidence, you gave me purpose. When the world told me I was done, you whispered: Not yet.
Every mistake taught me something essential. Every setback forced me to grow, to expand, to become more proficient. You turned me into someone who can lead, who can pivot, who can see patterns others miss.
You were my expensive savior and life teacher. And I wouldn’t trade the lessons—or the lifeline—for anything.
Life very rarely turns out the way you plan or expect it to. But I’ve learned that those who can adjust—whether sooner or later—are the ones who survive, compared to those who become crippled and ultimately defeated by regret.
The failing and falling are inevitable. The getting up and adjusting to continue forward—that’s the thing that matters.
The Bridge Ahead
So I’m getting up. I’m adjusting. I’m moving forward.
After saying goodbye to you, I’m turning my focus into building Soulcraze—a creative community and media brand for dark, serialized stories. Think Wattpad meets Netflix Originals, but darker, more immersive, and community-driven.
It’s a different dream. A different bridge. But it’s built on the foundation you gave me.
Because here’s the truth I’ve come to believe: There are many routes to the destination that is your dream. A manifestation of who you are. Something that you build.
If one route gets blocked or a bridge falls, you find another way. You keep moving forward.
Letting go isn’t defeat. It’s strategic recalibration. It’s having the courage to see clearly and the wisdom to know when it’s time to pivot.
You taught me that.
Goodbye, My Love
So this is where we part ways, Foodiwant.
I’m not abandoning you out of lack of belief. I’m releasing you because I love you enough to accept that the world you were meant for is changing faster than either of us can keep up with.
You saved my life once. Now it’s time for me to save what you helped me build: the resilience, the skills, the belief that I can create something meaningful even when the odds are stacked against me.
Maybe I was too bold. Maybe too audacious. Maybe this problem wasn’t mine to solve.
A lot of maybes. A lot of could-have-beens.
But I make no excuses. You were everything you needed to be—and you made me everything I needed to become.
Thank you for the lessons. Thank you for the scars. Thank you for the lifeline when I was drowning. Thank you for the faith you forced me to build when logic said quit.
I’ll carry you with me—not as a failure, but as a foundation.
And who knows? Maybe one day, when the dust settles and the industry finds its new equilibrium, there will be a place for something like you again.
But for now, I have to let you go.
With all my love and gratitude,
Mario
