We don’t often talk about MenuPages (the company) often. But as you may have heard, MenuPages was purchased last week by New York Media, publishers of New York Magazine.
Here’s what a better business reporter than ourselves, Richard Perez-Pena of the New York Times, wrote:
MenuPages.com will remain a stand-alone Web site, while also providing listings on the magazine’s site, nymag.com, and it will give New York Media an entree to the seven other metropolitan areas it covers. The restaurant section is already one of nymag.com’s most heavily used features. New York magazine’s site covers about 6,000 restaurants around the city, said Serena Torrey, a spokeswoman for New York Media.
The listings give price ranges and other information, but while some of them have menus and user reviews, many still do not. By comparison, Ms. Torrey said, MenuPages covers about 10,000 restaurants in Manhattan alone, along with a smaller number in Brooklyn, and they are much more likely to have menus and multiple reviews. “They have many, many more menus than we do, and they have an incredibly efficient menu transcription system and updating system,” she said. MenuPages also has listings for Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Boston, Washington and South Florida. In some areas, the listings are available through the Web sites of other media partners, like The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Boldface ours. You see, Philly even got some Times love out of this story. More reaction is available over at, among others, Gawker, Mediabistro/FishbowlNY, CNet and paidContent. And even though this particular editor will be leaving MenuPages on Friday to start a long-planned graduate school program, we’re still proud as hell.
Now onto the press release.
NEW YORK MEDIA ACQUIRES MENUPAGES.COM
MenuPages to Continue as Distinct Multi-City Site
New York, NY, July 14, 2008 – New York Media LLC, the parent company of New York magazine and the Website NYmag.com, announced today that it has acquired leading restaurant listings Website MenuPages. Currently serving eight major markets, MenuPages will continue to operate under its distinct URL, MenuPages.com.
MenuPages currently attracts approximately 1.5 million unique users and 15 million page views per month to its thousands of detailed restaurant listings from eight U.S. cities. Combined with NYmag.com’s more than 5 million monthly unique visitors and 45 million page views, this acquisition creates a significant and immediate advertising opportunity for NYmag.com’s proven sales staff. NYmag.com’s restaurant menus will now be powered by MenuPages, and in the longer term, New York Media plans to expand MenuPages’ scope and depth while forming strategic licensing, advertising and distribution partnerships across the country.
“The acquisition of MenuPages is an exciting addition to New York Media’s restaurant and dining content offering. We’re thrilled to be able to extend our investment strategy to strategic acquisitions that compliment our existing assets,” said New York Media CEO Anup Bagaria. “We’ll continue to invest behind the talented staff at New York Media to drive organic growth as well as to pursue acquisitions on a selective basis.”
The MenuPages staff, led by the company’s President and Founder, Greg Barton, will move into New York Media’s Soho offices late in the summer of 2008 and will work closely with New York Media staff including General Manager of Digital Media Michael Silberman, Publisher Larry Burstein and Editor-in-Chief Adam Moss.
“MenuPages has built its traffic organically through consistent unmatched content quality and reliability,” said Greg Barton. “I am thrilled to be launching a new era for MenuPages; as part of New York Media, with its tremendous depth of resources and expertise, we will be able to work together to build a business that is a nationally recognized resource for restaurants and dining.”
About New York Media
New York Media is the parent company for the ground-breaking weekly New York magazine, founded in 1968, the Website nymag.com, the twice-yearly publications New York Weddings and New York Look, the events sponsorship division New York Events, and the national restaurant search Website MenuPages.
