Eight startup companies from around the world are in Syracuse working to get their ventures off the ground. They were chosen out of more than 300 companies to be a part of the first StartFast Venture Accelerator Program in Central New York. This week, our Katie Gibas introduces us a couple of entrepreneurs making it easier and cheaper to eat out.

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If you go looking for restaurants in Syracuse on a Monday afternoon, you may notice that many are closed. If they're open, they're usually pretty empty.

"Any time of the day, any time of the week, the pricing is pretty much fixed, despite the fact that demand fluctuates pretty drastically. There's a disconnect there, and there's a lot of money left on the table for both restaurants and consumers," said Paul Faguet, the BitePal founder.

That's where BitePal comes in. BitePal is a website and mobile app where restaurants can post discounts for certain days and times.

"Restaurants love it because it gives them all the control over the discount magnitude, the time period and days of the week, when those discounts are going to be redeemable, and the maximum number of deals that can be obtained by the user. Restaurants have full control over all these parameters and that really de-risks the whole solution for them," said Faguet.

So what makes BitePal different from Groupon or Living Social? First, they focus solely on restaurants. Second, customers don't have to pay for the discount. And third, it helps restaurants maintain positive cash flow.

"With Groupon, every customer that comes in makes the business hemorrhage cash pretty much and the business accepts that value proposition in hopes of receiving repeat visitors down the line. So that's a very vague non-measurable value proposition. With us, every customer is immediately profitable," said Faguet.

BitePal is established in both Ithaca and Syracuse. Some of the participating restaurants in Central New York are BC, The Mission, and Kitty Hoynes.

For more restaurant discounts, you can check out bitepal.com.