Original Restaurants formed in 2007 and launched to promote unique, local restaurants. Over the next 18-months, over 200,000 customers joined the rewards program and now spend over $2,000,000 per month at 300 of country's best restaurants. The restaurant business is our passion. Our restaurants vary from white tablecloth and upscale casual to sandwich shops and pizza parlors. We live our business, breathe it, work in it and play in it. Local, independently operated restaurants provide the soul and distinctive flavors of food that help define a sense of place.
Kermit Austin formed Original Restaurants in 2007 after several years of implementing rewards programs for locally owned restaurants and retailers. The software his team developed over the past four years, called PowerCard, is the foundation for the Original Restaurants Rewards Program.
Prior to forming PowerCard, Kermit enjoyed his first start up experience, Do Network and DoTucson.com, where his team raised $12MM in 1998 and later sold the company in 2002. Kermit serves on the board of directors of GOGAS, a $225MM petroleum corporation, and plays an advisory role in various start-ups in hospitality management.
Kermit started off as a busboy at Narcissus on Clematis Street in West Palm Beach. He waited tables, managed bars and built websites to pay his way through college at the University of Arizona, where he graduated with a degree in Management Information Systems. The Austin family resides in Wilmington, NC.