Zagats Settle Up, Put Company for Sale

Tim and Nina Zagat, whose eponymous ratings guide started in 1979 as a two-page typed list of New York restaurants, are putting their baby on the market. Insiders peg the company’s worth at $200 million; the Times thinks the brand will prove attractive to companies like AT&T, who could use it to build exclusive mobile phone content.

Sources tell the Times that the Zagats would like to see their “fabulous brand” expand further beyond what an independent company can manage. And after churning out the guides for almost three decades, retiring with a nice multi-million nest egg probably doesn’t sound bad either.

Zagat stats for prospective buyers:

The Zagats began publishing the guide themselves, personally delivering copies to bookstores.
Last year they sold 5.5 million guides
Their website has 1.5 million paying registered users.
There’s a Zagat guide to the rides at Disney World.
Tim Zagat weighs in at about 250 lbs.

Photo of Tim and Nina Zagat via Jaunted.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By John Del Signore in Food on January 14, 2008 10:30 AM

Comments [rss]

bklyngrrl

If Zagat is supposed to be the judge of fine taste, why are they eating pringles in an ugly hotel lobby circa 1970s?

smitty

They should have sold out about 5 years ago, before everyone read reviews on citysearch, yelp and menupages.

matty

I rely on check please in chicago. The best TV show ever made.

EastRiver

Zagat guides have served me well in other cities but not New York. I think the city is too large to be rated by individuals because no one person can really dine at enough restaurants to establish a coherent scale and this is compounded by the fact that voters use a 0 to 3 scale which later gets translated to 0 to 30. Consequently people feel compelled to give ok restaurants a 2 or 3 when they really deserve something lower i.e. 17 or 24. The result is inflated scores.