Who’s behind it
About 86 Empty Seats
A restaurant marketing agency run by someone who has actually worked the line, run the floor, and felt a slow Tuesday land in the bank account.
The name says it. “86” is kitchen slang for killing something off the menu, so 86 Empty Seats means exactly one thing: we get rid of your empty seats and fill the house.
It’s led by Daniel Ruiz, born and raised in New York City, who spent more than a decade in its kitchens long before he ever touched marketing. That’s the whole point of this agency: your marketing is handled by an operator who has lived your problems, not a marketer guessing at what a food business needs.
The story
From the line to the laptop
Daniel came up the hard way, in the kitchens of his own city. Over more than a decade on the line in New York, he worked his way from cook to sous chef to executive chef, across franchise concepts, fine-dining rooms, some of the city’s busiest spots, corporate and executive dining, and catering.
Then he crossed to the other side of the door. He spent the next decade-plus in tech and marketing, and co-founded Crewli, a software platform built for restaurants. He has seen this business from the back of the house, the front of the house, and the spreadsheet behind both.
That mix is the whole point. The spots with the best food were so often the hardest to find online, their marketing an afterthought handed to agencies that had never worked a shift.
So he started doing it himself, the right way, for operators like the ones he’d cooked beside. Your marketing isn’t shaped by someone guessing at what guests want. It’s built by someone who has worked both sides of the door.
He still treats a good meal the way he was raised to: as the main event of the day, not something to rush through on the way to something else. That’s the lens behind 86 Empty Seats.
Built in real kitchens, for the people who run them.
Real experience, not guesswork
The receipts
The proof that this is built by a real operator with real authority in food, not a faceless agency.
Authority
Publisher of Sobremesa Press
A real food publication with editorial reach and an audience of regulars, written by someone who actually worked the line.
Restaurant + tech
Co-founder of Crewli
An operations app for restaurants, proof we build real tools for how kitchens and floors actually run.
Expertise
Author of “Cook by Feel”
Daniel’s published book on cooking with instinct over rigid recipes, the kind of judgment you only earn from years on the line.
View on AmazonHow we work
One operator, hands-on, in your corner
86 Empty Seats is led by the founder and kept deliberately lean. No bloated agency, no junior hand-offs.
Hands-on, always
You work directly with Daniel, the person actually doing the work and picking up the phone, not a name on a proposal.
One point of contact
A single, vetted point of contact who has lived the business, with specialists pulled in from a trusted network only when a project truly needs them.
Outcomes, not vanity
We sell more people in your seats, covers and table turns, not likes, followers, or numbers that never buy a table.
Let’s fill the house
Tell us where your empty seats are coming from, and we’ll show you exactly how we’d 86 them. No pressure, no jargon.