Caper Digs In.
Max Tcheyan's new food media company is fueled by journalist-driven, deep-dive storytelling.
If you love food and words, you’ve probably already heard about Caper, the new media company from co-founders Max Tcheyan (The Athletic, Puck) and Dan Tsinis (Roku, Puck and Disney) and editor-in-chief Dana Brown (former deputy editor of Vanity Fair). Built on $2.5 million in seed funding, it’s a promising out-of-the-box undertaking devoted to covering the people, creativity, vision, power and chaos that fuel the food world, from big picture headliners to little stories that tend to slip through the cracks.
Caper arrives on the Beehiiv platform, not Substack, in soft launch mode until the end of the month when the team aims to apply The Athletic’s city-based sports model to the world of food, serving both industry insiders and food enthusiasts. Founded with a tight team of three acclaimed owner-journalists – Chris Crowley (NY Mag), Emma Orlow (Eater), and Annie Armstrong (Artnet News), and led by EIC Dana Brown (Vanity Fair, Air Mail), it’s already delivering reports that move and matter.
Emma’s dispatches include first rate opening scoops – like the one she sent out this week about Paul McGee, former owner of Chicago’s famous tiki bar Lost Lake, and Chloe Frechette, executive editor of cocktail website PUNCH, who are opening two bars in one; Echo Lake, which is targeting a March debut, and downstairs, which will open a few weeks later, is the more intimate Undercurrent. She also did a fun piece on Caroline Hesse, the cheesemonger who serves the best chefs in the city and throws a Saturday cheese party once a month with a line to rival Palladium in the 80s. (IYKYK.)
This week, Chris dug into the chaos and cruelty of ICE on the Lower East Side writing,
“A few weeks ago, on a Thursday evening, a rumor ripped through New York’s restaurant industry: ICE was hitting the Lower East Side. Shortly before 6:00 p.m., I met up with a source, who told me a 1,000-person industry group chat was going off. There was chatter of a mass sweep downtown. Within 30 minutes, two others reached out. On social media and over text, more people were sharing the names of restaurants that were supposedly raided: a cocktail bar and a wine bar, a seafood spot, a Southeast Asian restaurant, a Mediterranean place. Word was spreading that ICE had snatched a barback from the cocktail bar: “Everyone get inside and lock your doors,” one person wrote.”
Annie, while known for her decades as an art writer, is bridging both worlds; she delivered a newsletter with a scoop about Gosh, a new bar on Mulberry Street, founded by two of the four owners of art gallery Amanita; news about an unusual legal spat over a lobster between LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault (more familiarly known as the richest man in France) and his personal chef; and an intriguing alternative to the bougie members-only scene—Estonian House on East 34th Street, which she reports is open to non-members for dinner every Thursday, and includes a pool-table (no line!), a long wooden bar (stocked with two Estonian vodkas, Viru Valge and Saaremaa), and a daily menu written in Estonian on a chalkboard. How amazing!I’m planning a visit, wanna come?
As someone who’s been at this journalism thing for nearly three decades (clearly I started when I was a wee five year old!), I’m grateful for the birth of Caper and its ballsy, clever and necessary disruption of the status quo. (I’m also excited about what the folks at the new Gourmet are up to.) Selling meaty, thoughtfully-reported stories is harder than ever for real journalists, and I’m seeing too many talented writers lose their jobs, or be sidelined for the next great Instagram Reel or “best of” listicle. I want to read (and write) deep-dive, gritty, heartfelt, beautiful, interesting stories about our industry and the folks who make it tick. And I want journalists to get paid well and have security. Caper is doing all of this.
I sat down with co-founder Max Tcheyan, co-founder and former Chief Strategy Officer at Puck and one of the earliest employees at The Athletic, Gametime, and Bleacher Report, to chat about his vision for Caper, what to expect, how to pitch him, and why these stories are more important now than ever.
What was your vision for Caper?
The universe we are building out is one that we hope gives readers an edge; that edge comes from chronicling the food, restaurant and hospitality world. If you work in the business, it’s helping you navigate your career and giving you the connectivity to do so. If you’re a consumer, it brings a level of intimacy to these places. It helps you become a better diner and patron. It takes you closer to feeling part of the industry and more like being a regular.
What is your business model at Caper?
My background is in building media companies. Over the course of my career that started at The Athletic and evolved for Puck, we saw a way to build media companies through subscriptions and events, and I wanted to continue to see if I could evolve that model in a new space I was interested in: restaurants.
You partner with journalists so they have equity in the business too, right?
Yes, we partner with journalists which is unique. At The Athletic, journalists were equitized in the business and participated in revenue they drove with bonuses from subscriptions. We are taking it a step further here. From day zero of the business, we are in a true partnership with journalists to reflect the commitment they are making at this stage of the company with equity, a bonus for subscriptions and company goals, and participation in how we develop IP. That is still pretty novel in journalism, and it came out of Silicon Valley in those start up eco systems.
This is your first food media company? Why now?
This is my first time in media in the food space; I worked in restaurants growing up and had that background. My partner and co-founder/COO Dan Tsinis worked with me at Puck, and we would be talking about the theater of restaurants and always had questions about the people behind it. It’s a world full of interesting stories and characters, but so much of what my food media consumption was just service journalism and utility. We were seeing a lot of lists, openings, best burgers, and critique and reviews. We didn’t think there was a brand doing consistent story telling with a journalist first-approach.
What are the ways that Caper differs from other food sites like Eater, Grub Street, The Infatuation, or even The Food Section of the Times?
Hospitality groups in general are full of such talented strategic people. There are so many stories and characters. We thought, ‘who is telling their story?’ We see this as a pro-sumer thesis. If we are serving the hospitality executive and folks in the industry, there will be a consumer base who finds it fascinating and wants to be closer to the industry. There will be diners who want to understand more about what’s happening behind the scenes in bringing these stories and places to light.
Is Caper only covering NYC stories?
For now we are New York focused, but we have contributors in other cities. We are anchored in our categories, not the cities. So we will cover food stories related to business, real estate, art, power, and media but those stories can land us anywhere.
What is the subscription model?
Right now in soft launch, so all content is free and newsletter only. At the start of next month, the site will be built out and the paywall goes up. Membership comes with behind-the-paywall content, and access to events. There will be a base tier and a pro tier; the base tier is content and events, and the pro tier includes professional products and some other events at a higher price point. (Pricing will be updated here when available.) Everyone who is now in soft launch will get an early invite for the first year. We are excited to hear what you all think.
What will the cadence be for your content?
Each journalist will write their own newsletter one day a week; so we will have a newsletter three times a week. For higher subscription tiers we might offer more, but we don’t want to overwhelm inboxes. Giving each journalist a day to go deep on a story, or to open up their notebook and share news and notes that can develop into something further, gives readers a behind the scenes look at the industry and at reporting on it. You are getting insider access. Beyond the newsletter, the site will also have fresh content by our core journalists and freelancers.
Tell me about how you conceived the design and feel of the site.
We wanted to elevate the humanness of going out to eat and being in these spaces. We hope that comes through on the site. You will see a lot of hand drawn work. Even our logo was hand drawn and we all signed it. We rotate the “Caper” signatures. It has the feel of going out to a restaurant and doodling on a cocktail napkin. We hope that humanism and authenticity will come through.
Do you accept pitches from publicists and freelancers?
Yes! Feel free to send to me max@caper.media or to Dana dana@caper.media. We want to make this a space for stories that you can’t find a place for.
What about the name? How’d you land on Caper?
Well, we started somewhere else and didn’t think the previous name was quite right, and there was a trademark issue. Then, one day, I was reading and I read a line, “a caper -like atmosphere,” and that jumped off the page at me. It has double entendre – the caper as an ingredient, and as the son of a northern Italian woman that’s an ingredient that was a staple in my house. And it was a chance to elevate the brand to bring in a sense of adventure, of not taking ourselves too seriously, a space to really celebrate our business and ultimately tell great stories.
I love the journalist-driven approach and focus on humanity. Excited to subscribe!