Online restaurant guide The Infatuation recently got a $30 million infusion of cash from Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg. The two friends who started the brand have turned their restaurant recommendations into an empire. NY1’s Matt McClure sat down with them to find out more about the company and their upcoming food festival in Queens.

Chris Stang and Andrew Steinthal are two former music industry executives who also share a passion for food.

“There’s not much more that I love than getting dropped in a new city with nothing on the schedule except for ‘go eat.’ I get excited about that,” Steinthal said.

Stang agrees. “I don’t think you have to call yourself a ‘food enthusiast’ – we don’t use the other ‘F word’ around here – to feel that way,” he said.

The two men are the founders of The Infatuation, a bar and restaurant recommendation guide for the digital generation. The brand has grown by leaps and bounds since the two started writing restaurant reviews in 2009. Instagram has been a huge part of that growth, thanks to the popularity of food photos on the social media network and the company’s now-famous hashtag #EEEEEATS (with exactly five E’s). Fans have now used that hashtag in more than 13,000,000 posts.

“Altogether, we cover more than twenty cities,” Stang said. “We have an office in L.A., an office in London and full-time people all around the country.”

That full-time staff is currently made up of more than sixty people.

The Infatuation’s success is especially evident in the company’s move earlier in 2018 to buy the legendary Zagat food guide.

“We’re the Zagat of this next generation,” Steinthal said. “It’s a perfect fit.”

In 2017, The Infatuation launched its first festival in Los Angeles. Aptly named EEEEEATSCON, the event is coming to Forest Hills Stadium in Queens on Saturday, October 6th.

Steinthal and Stang haven’t completely left their roots in the music business behind. The guys describe EEEEEATSCON as a food festival with the spirit of a music festival. More than twenty-five restaurant vendors, from New York and around the country, have signed on to take part.

“Shake Shack and the restaurant Emily are doing a collaboration burger together, which is exciting,” Stang said. “You’ll move to another space [where] we’ll have a wine experience. You’ll move to another space we’re calling the Treat Yard where there’s desserts and all that stuff. Hopefully people will walk away having learned some things, having eaten a lot of things.”