HouseTab Is Socializing the Bar Scene through Mobile Payments

On Tuesday evening, HouseTab officially celebrated its launch at the Windsor Gansevoort Park with a warm reception of crispy hors d’oeuvres and drinks, putting an emphasis on the niche that their new mobile payment app is aiming to capture.

HouseTab CEO, Andrew Tauber proudly announced its debut and a business model that is “revolutionizing” how we dine, imbibe, and socialize.

Tauber said, “HouseTab is more than just mobile payments; we’re looking to drive usage, adoption and create a social community.”

HouseTab is a mobile app targeting the nightlife trendsetters “with a specific focus on the post-collegiate 23-30 age group,” hoping to bridge the gap between mobile payments and social etiquette.

Facilitating our social experiences, HouseTab envisions the elimination of waiting on friends and bar tabs, awkward divvying, and clumsy calculating (post-residual banter, food coma, and imbibing).

From the merchant’s perspective, HouseTab allows restaurants and bars to engage in customer hospitality, repeat business (such as texting “a drink on the house”), as well as to ensure all payments and tips have been easily tracked and completed through the app.

So what are its capabilities?

They include social texting, sending and receiving food and drink or other goodies, paying for tabs through the app (no more lost credit cards (!)), and keeping up on the real-time pulse of specials and promotions.

If you’re running late for a night out, you can send your punctual friends at the HouseTab-using bar a drink, as a token of apology.

While this app is at the moment currently only available for iOS devices, HouseTab plans on making the push to Android in the near future.

HouseTab is also expanding their current roster of 15 established bars dotted along West Side New York to any and all restaurant and bar establishments.

When asked if HouseTab had plans to partner with other complimentary social apps, such as Tinder for example, Tauber responded that they “would be open to partnering with other platforms down the line.”

Closing the night with insightful conversations with investors, media, the HouseTab team, and the staff at Windsor Gansevoort Park, one is left with the impression that mobile payments has just hit the pavement running - that the adoption of mobile payments on both merchant and consumer sides will happen if those solutions can solve a real problem, which HouseTab hopes to do.