When Xinyang Chen and Dorothy Qian saw a disconnect between the popularity of food culture and the lack of a platform to talk about it, they put their technological and business skills to use and created an app called Dining to give food the exclusive social platform it deserves.

“Our primary aim is to connect people,” Qian, the marketing director and a CAS senior, said. “This is a social media platform, first and foremost. We’re looking for a constant engagement between food bloggers, restauranteurs, foodies, chefs… basically a giant dinner -table bonding over food.”

Dining began with Chen and Qian’s desire to integrate the best aspects of Instagram, Yelp and Tumblr into a comprehensive website and app. Users can sign up on the website and upload pictures of food they ate or cooked, recipes or recommendations of restaurants. The beta version of the app will have a main page — similar to Instagram’s “explore” page — with its users’ -trending posts.

Chen, who is a senior in Stern, believes what sets Dining apart from apps like Instagram is the sole focus on food and users’ genuine interest in discovering new foods. 

“With Instagram, the pictures of food do get very popular but usually face problems in getting the right audience,” Chen said. “Bloggers usually even post links to their sites because they want to utilize the popular appeal of Instagram, but at the same time, they’re searching for a better platform to talk about their experiences to the people who care to listen.”

Chen and Qian designed the app with millennials in mind as their primary audience. They believe young professionals and college students will benefit the most from the app’s features.

The team is currently on their final outreach phase, and Chen said she is working to approach restaurants around campus to ensure that NYU students have enough incentives to join.

“The partnerships we establish aren’t just for discounts and advertising,” Chen said. “We’re getting people who are working in the food industry to join the app as users, so the food they recommend and the pictures they post will be extremely interesting for other users.”

Launching their beta- version this month, the team already has a big future in mind for Dining. Qian and Chen are excited by the future possibilities of the app.

“We’re driven by our faith in this,” Qian said. “There’s a lot of commitment to the project, and we’ve started getting a lot of support from food bloggers, Instagrammers and NYU Food Studies professors.”

“There’s a huge demand. It’s food! Everybody needs it, whether they want it or not, so it’s the ultimate universal link,” Chen said. “We’re drawn to the huge market potential. We’re starting with fewer features to see what works and what’s popular, but who knows where we could go in the future.”

A version of this article appeared in the Monday, April 4 print edition. Email Sanya Sareen at [email protected].