Slashdot Mirror
Online Takeout Delivery is Back
prostoalex writes "It's like watching e-Dreams and re-living the Kozmo.com experience, only this time it's for real, the New York Times says. SeamlessWeb is here (or rather, in New York, Chicago, Washington, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Los Angeles and southern Connecticut) to take your take-out orders and deliver the food. All is done via their Web site so no need to look for that takeout menu: "SeamlessWeb charges restaurants a commission of 5 percent to 15 percent, while the business pays a 2.5 percent fee for each transaction. The process for consumers will work much the same, except they will be charged no service fee.""
Dominos UK (http://www.dominos.co.uk) has had a web orders facility (and interactive digital TV) for the last four years. Is this really just catching on over the pond?
I guess the big question is, what point am I missing here?
Sunday you're Thinking Different, Monday you're a huge tool, paying too much and waiting to think like everyone else.
2. Order Domino's pizza online at their web site.
3. Drive home and wait for pizza.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
I have ordered my groceries online for the past five years and would never consider going back to a store again. I wish food was the same way. You can usually order pizza from ten different places, but only one is online (Papa Johns). Well, sometimes Pizza Hutt, but I think that's only in Kansas or something.
Most cities in the country, outside of maybe the very heart of Seattle and then LA, New York and Chicago - you can't really even order food by phone - much less the internet.
I've never lived in any place (including Portland) where you could have anything other than pizza delivered. It would be cool if you could have chinese, mexican, italian and other stuff delivered. Even better would be if you could have real food - not just some fast food el-cheapo crap.
But I guess there's no money in it so you still have to drive all over town for everything in the world. I guess it's still 1985.
I've been using CampusFood.com to make my takeout (or pick-up) deliveries for quite some time. Great service. I don't think that online delivery services ever left the internet -- this story is just a shameless plug for some new startup.
I think my principles are reachin' an all time low
before the Food Network took over (bought?) the domain. Also, Waiters on Wheels. They fill a niche market.
My experience has been that ordering from a restaraunt that doesn't normally handle takeout will be a hit or miss affair as to whether or not you will be satisfied with what gets delivered.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Fort Wayne, Indiana already has this, with a much, MUCH better name... waiter on the way.
waiterontheway.com
I've been using http://www.takeouttaxi.com/ for quite a while now.
pooptruck
...God forbid the connection lags and you hit submit 4 times. They better have some good order verification :)
Then again, like the advent of consumer priced broadband crawling slowly past the cities, I wonder how long it will take before this is anything but simply another way to order a lunch meeting meal for metro area companies.
Perfecting Discordia
www.stevenvansickle.com
Is this different than Restaurants on the Go here in Toronto? I can order online (or via the phone) from a rather large list of restaurants and have it delivered to my door. Sure, there's a delivery fee, but one might expect that.
- In hell, treason is the work of angels.
I think the point is that you can orderf rom anywhere on one site. For no extra fee!
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them.
There's a CAD comic for every story...
= 2005-02-21
http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/?t=archives&date
Another blatent advertisement gets posted as a story. Yawn.
I thought Kozmo was starting to actually make money in some cities. About time some company stepped in to fill the void.
Two feet from you there is a phone on your desk, you look at it trying to do that jedi trick and make it fly over because you are just too damn lazy to pick the thing up. The craving for pizza is overwhelming, so. weak. from. lack. of. food. Starve or pick up phone? Decisions, Decisions... now that dilemma is solved for you, oh happy day!
Many of the local supermarkets have online ordering and delivery for about $10 extra. Webvan burned through tens of millions trying to build warehouse delivery centers before it failed.
Are we going to be shocked by the amazing new discovery of a restaurant with salt and pepper on every table next?
Kozmo delivered movies and convenience store products (and even electronics). Stuff you really couldn't have delivered easily from anyone else. It wasn't just "but it's on the Internet!" but rather a whole new thing.
This is just food delivery where you order online -- just like DiningIn has been doing for years (Boston, Chicago, Philly, and Dallas). And news-flash: there's thousands of restaurants that aready do delivery, so adding "on the Internet!" isn't all that exciting.
SeamlessWeb is here (or rather, in New York, Chicago, Washington, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Los Angeles and southern Connecticut) to take your take-out orders and deliver the food.
What about those of us in flyover country, you insensitive clod? (j/k)
In all seriousness, I think this is a great idea, but it's hardly original. It does need to catch on, tho. When I was living in San Diego, I was able to order pizzas from Dominos entirely online, pay for them with my card, and have them delivered faster than had I phoned in a cash order. I wish the take-outs luck with this.
It must be Windows. It needs half a gig of RAM and a hardware-accelerated graphics card just to run Solitaire.
Campus Food has had this technology for two years now, since launching. Currently, it serves college campuses all around the nation. I use it in the vacinity of UMASS Amherst, where it serves the 5 college area. It's a great convenience, no service fee!
Kozmo offered video rentals online, with free delivery - as well as things like snack foods, CDs, convenience items, video games, etc. It was impulse-buying to the max. I was so sad to see Kozmo die. This is nothing like Kozmo, it's like all the other online ordering systems for restaraunts out there.
Meh. Call me when Kozmo REALLY comes back.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
Lessons From Big Mistakes in the past.. remember WebVan.. anyway wishing them all the very best!
It took them long enough, but they finally realized that if you hide the cost of the second business (delivery) in the prices from the first business (food) people can be fooled into thinking they are getting free delivery.
Or, another way of looking at this is that urban prices are so inflated that one can piggyback entire businesses inside the margins. I suppose when a sandwich costs $15, you've got a lot of room to play with your delivery model.
This isn't exactly new, at least insofar as I've experienced it in college life, quite a few places have online ordering around me.
There is even a consolidated website for placing orders... http://www.campusfood.com/
They only have a few places from my campus but on other campuses they have quite a few, and they've been around since at least last fall... possibly longer (I really don't know)
MoM++ - A Classic Expanded - [Master of Magic 1.5]
http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
In my area (Arlington, VA), we have DrDelivery.com. You can get all sorts of food and other errands run for you. Its fairly popular.
As long as a company stays small and dosn't expect 90% of the population to go for internet-delivered everything this type of thing can be a success. After pets.com people said no one could make money selling petfood online, but actualy lots of people do. They just don't have multi-million dollar ad-campains.
There will always be a few people rich and lazy enough (or in my case, rich and holding a suspended drivers license) to make something like this work.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
delivery.com anyone? just changed over from nyctogo.com not too long ago, and they cover almost every eatery in the city (NY at least).
Gee.. Thank God you're nothing but a lowlife loser with nothing better to do with his pathetic life, other than anybody with a slightest power to change any of the points above.
According to the SeamlessWeb site, it's only NYC now anyway, despite what the /. story says.
Photography, technology, and my dog Scout - http://mattstratton.com
I agree that it's a brilliant idea, but the relevant question is, why will it succeed this time if it failed last time?
The most obvious answer is that the dotcom era is over. If they're offering a reasonable offer at a reasonable price, plus the economies of scale (why should every restaurant in the area have a separate delivery system when you can even out the bursts with a large central service?), it could well work.
As opposed to the dotcom era, when readily-available investor money and a land-rush attitude made for stupid promotions. A friend of mine bought stuff through kozmo because it was cheaper, even delivered, than buying the object in a store. Clearly they were losing money like crazy and he knew he was taking advantage of stupid investors.
Here in Smyrna (a NW Atlanta suburb), we can get excellent Chinese food delivered (from Orient Express in Vinings) and fairly good Italian food (from Bella's in Smyrna), and it's replaced pizza for us. Good stuff. Atlanta doesn't have good pizza places, anyway.
We even had some good options when I lived in a SW suburb of Minneapolis -- Green Mill in Eden Prairie delivered their entire menu, including various pasta dishes and sandwiches as well as pizza, and I seem to recall at least one other place in the area that did Italian food delivery.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
Nothing more than a big advertisement.
SeamlessWeb has been available in NYC (and surrounding areas, like Hoboken NJ) for years, I use it quite frequently. How is this news?
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
Pizza 73 has been offering this in Western Canada for ages too. Extremely useful
I actually am currently working for a startup company that is doing this as well. We have been in business for a couple of years, and currently are in the New England area. You can check us out at here.
Uh, I live in a very small town in NC (roughly 20 thousand people) and we've had a service like this for a few years. We can order online from one site and have food delivered from pretty much any restaurant in town (about 30).
has been doing this in college towns for years now. How is this news?
I have been ordering pizza online for years...this is not news.
WOULDN'T IT BE GREAT TO TURN ON THE TV AND HEAR ANY U.S. PRESIDENT, DEMOCRAT OR REPUBLICAN, GIVE THE FOLLOWING SPEECH?
No, not really.
First, This, 'you're either for us or against us mentality' is not only childish, it's outright destructive.
Second, that speech looks like it was written by a 12 year old.
In my suburb there's a firm that will deliver for the local area. www.carryoutmenu.com. I suspect there are many such firms around the country.
I'm somewhat confused by the slashdot editorial policy, that this non-event could make the home page.
My cat can eat a whole watermelon
If, as engineers, we were doing our jobs right, it should be so easy for a restaurant to setup this kind of service for itself that there would be no no need for a guy who essentially just puts up an ordering system for restaurants and then charges huge commissions (which get passed on).
Wasn't the whole point of the democratization of the net that small businesses should be able to do this for themselves (without needing outside help) thereby saving everybody money? It's constantly disappointing to see how technology that's supposed to make things cheaper and more efficient often just provides an excuse for more expense and waste and yet another service company.
like Waiter.com and a couple other ones that roam around the Bay Area.
Guess nobody told them the dot-com boom was over.
So, what's newsworthy about this? I know that the editors don't bother to read the stories, but this doozy makes it look like they've been living under a big rock.
They deliver food from many restaurants around town for a very reasonable fee.
http://delivereddish.com/
Just make sure that whatever you order doesn't have ripped up, dead animals in it.
That would be simply revolting.
Nice try, troll. What a waste of time that was, though I suppose you copy/pasted that from someplace. Try some subtlety next time, it helps if people don't KNOW you are trying to troll them.
Two company's have been doing this for years in Santa Barbara:
Dining Car
Restaurant Connection
The services are easy to use. The Restaurant Connection started doing deliveries over the phone years before the internet was readily available. The Dining Car moved into the city a few years ago with an established website. The thought was the Dining Car, with their superior technology and deep pockets, would push the Restaurnt Connection out of business however that did not happen. It was easier for the Restaurant Connection to create an online presence then it was for the Dining Car to establish relationships with local restaurants and customers. This technology is a commodity that anyone can create. Best of luck to Seamlessweb but I think this is the making of a sequel to startup.com.
The insensitive clots ruling the world at my employer use seamlessweb so that all the worker bees would remain at their desks as long as possible.
The system generally works very well, although the 10:30am cutoff time for lunch orders can come and go very ruthlessly leaving you without the free lunch for the day.
The few problems we've had with the service have to do more with the vendors rather than seamlessweb. Some of them, especially the new restaurants in the system, have problems fullfilling the volume of orders sometimes.
They recently revamped their user interface. The old user interface made the service look a little like someone was running it from their garage. The new one is definitely an improvement and looks very professional.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
I double checked, and found that I accidentally typed dominatrix.com instead of dominos.com. I was wondering why I never got any pizzas, but this weird lady kept knocking at my door.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
First a ::Cue::Cat story, now this! Gotta get some VC suckers to back my online ice delivery service, quick!
Seamlessweb began operating in NYC in 2001 dealing primarily with businesses. They act as an intermediary with local restaurants. You choose a restaurant on their site and place an order, Seamlessweb bills the order and tip to the office and places it with the restaurant. When your food arrives all thats needed is a signature. In midtown Manhattan there are over 40 restaurants to choose from on their site. Added features are the ability to add client billing numbers that get passed directly to the accounting department and information on the average delivery times for each restaurant.
It will be interesting to see if they can transition to working with the general public, especially if there is a premium involved.
SeamlessWeb is here (or rather, in New York, Chicago, Washington, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Los Angeles and southern Connecticut)
I just went to their site and it says New York only. Other cities "coming soon."
Uhhhh... great article.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
Sorry, but there are some things that I need to see in person. In many cases, there's absolutely no substitute for personal experience in choosing a product. It varies between people, but mine are: foods, powertools, movies, most books, and just about everythings else. I like to see things in person. Having ship things back because of poor quality is more trouble than just going to a local store and seeing it for myself. Plus, I'm giving my local retailer business as opposed to someone a 1,000 miles away. Sometimes, there's no way around it, you have to buy over the internet (electronics for one - Radio Shack is now a Best Buy competitor), now and again.
Tulsa has had a way to order from around 100 different establishments for at least a couple years now. Nice to know we're ahead of the curve for once.
www.742dine.com
If you're in Pittsburgh, you can use http://wheeldeliver.net/. I've used it many times and it works quite well.
Dinner Delivery Plus is a service available to Seattle and surrounding areas. You put in an order and they go around to the place you want it from and pick it up. The only bad thing bout this service is the cost... They charge probably 15-20% on each order. Sometimes its worth it though if you really want something in particular and cant go pick it up. They have been around for at least a few years and have a ton of places to order from.
-Bill
umm, far as I know it never went away.
Triv
First off, how can you compare this to Kozmo. They used to deliver EVERYTHING! Not just food. I used to love browsing the new releases for Music and DVDs and having them that day to take home! Second, there are a zillion sites that offer a consolidated take out menu and ordering for all these restaurants. More than half these places already deliver and have online menus to choose from.
in New York, Chicago, Washington, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Los Angeles and southern Connecticut One would think Washington State since D.C. wasnt specifically mentioned, however I've noticed people tend to omit this and assume readers just know D.C. was implied. Foolish writers. Write what you mean, so we can read what you mean.
Now if I could just order a blowjob online, I'd never have to leave the house!
Elder folks need this, but they cannot use computers. When will it end?
Big deal...it's been in the Netherlands for quite some time with hundreds of delivery places around the country on the one site. I usually order once a week. Select your city/town, pick a type of food or restaurant and browser the menu, create your order and fill in your details. 1/2hr later the food's at your door.
Sparks:Gadget:Beer Maker
I've been using http://www.ontherun.cc almost weekly here in Las Vegas, they seem to work great, they have multiple cities.
In communist China, service delivers you!
I rarely order pizza online, although I'd prefer to. I just find that for the most part, the deals online are always inferior to the coupons delivered to my house via the news paper, snail mail or flyers on the door they put out.
They need some way to be able to put your coupon (code) in the website, and give you the coupon deal.
Papa Johns, and Dominos always have worst deals online than with coupons in my area.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Anyone know if there is a service that covers more than one supplier in the UK i.e. not just Dominos but a range of restaurants and deli's?
I've been using Quikorder for my dominos pizza (yes i have a thing for pre-made cheap pizza delivered fast =) for about 5 years now. Even has ICQ message alert, online order history, and good coupon deals.
How fat is America? Seriously. We aren't going to have to leave our house in 10 years.
[%] Cingular Ringtones
Here in San Francisco, I've been using Waiters on Wheels for the past 3 years!!
Online Takeout delivery is back?! It never went away!
This is just retarded.
My company is interested in buying one of your "premium advertisements". We were curious whether we should write the 'article' blurb ourselves, or if you have templates from which we can borrow. If you do not have any official templates, we see there are many examples already on your site and we will likely just model ours after one of them.
Sincerely,
AnyGivenDotCom.com
cyn, free software and *nix operating systems enthusiast.
been faxing in lunch/dinner orders since the early 80's, e-mailing 'em since the early 90's, and in 1994 gave demonstration of what the "world wide web" was to management which including showing site for carry out pizza ordering..... this really isn't earth shattering news.
1998 called, it wants it's troll back.
grammar-lesson free since 1999. (rescinded - 2005)
Let me start by saying that effective immediately, foreign aid to those nations on List 2 ceases immediately and indefinitely. The money saved during the first year alone will pretty much pay for the costs ofthe Iraqi war.
s /us.html#Econ). Let's say it's a bit more now (probably not, but hey) - maybe $10 billion?
Ah.... you've got to love the imagination of the right-wing nutcases. Sounds like this particular one has serious problems with math.
http://costofwar.com/ says we're up to $176 billion for the cost of this war. Most of which, by the way, went straight into the pockets of the fat cats in the military-industrial complex...
The CIA World fact book says the US spent not even $7 billion in foreign aid in 1997 (http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geo
So, to offset the cost of the war would take not one but at least 18 years. And we're not done yet in Iraq...
Why don't you go and study up on math and common sense. And while you're at it, it sounds like you need a good dose of basic human values too. For starters, stop watching Fox News, and start listening to NPR. Maybe you'll get some notion of what things are really like in the world that way. Someday. Hopefully.
http://ward.vandewege.net/blog/
If you are shopping for food / furniture / Girlfriend / Clothes etc online, something is wrong with you ;-(
Papa johns has been doing this for years. Create an account, put in your different locations (home, office, friends) pick the order you want, delivered in the same amount of time as called in deliveries. Most of the time its even cheaper, they allways have internet specials.
I would guess that a company that delivers different resturants food to your house would naturally take much longer then if you just picked it up your self, but for the chain companies that are handeling it them selves, papa johns has been doing it right for a whilel.
TruePunk | Games
In Denmark we have a system just like that that connects all the small take-away places in, almost, all of denmark.
:-)
Its called just-eat.dk and theres no crazy delivery fee (because its not the US, sorry but we wont pay $10 for delivery)
Theres also a system for thoose shops without their own delivery-guys that connects all thoose shops so you can get your food delivered anyway. Very clever. But a couple of years old really, you guys should really try to catch up.
I knew a guy who used to work for one of these food delivery places in California and if he was hungry he would skim a little food off of each plate. This left him with some extra time to take a nap when lunch break rolled around and he didn't need to eat.
Don't blame me, I voted for Cthulhu.
Room Service
Often times I find myself too buzzed to drive but fresh out of 40's... and no matter what I offer the Pizza Hut guy, he just won't go pick me up a couple more. How about an online beer delivery service? I think the government would even subsidize the business to keep the drunks (me) off the street... just a thought.
Finance tutorials and more! Understandfinance
O' for the opportunity to once again lament the loss of WebVan. I loved them. Mourn. Mourn.
But in all seriousness, just because the dot.com boom folded, doesn't mean that the idea was bad. WebVan died because it overextended itself massively, thinking it would have time to make a profit; and was caught rather unaware of the failing dot.com industry. Executive stupidity, sure, but a bad idea NO!! If they would have just kept to two primary markets during there fateful last year, they could have survived the crash, and be raking in the dough today. Many stores not offer delivery, because WebVan showed them that there was a market for it.
Also not to knock Seamless Web, but Waiter's On Wheel (Bay Area) and Waiter.com (Bay Area & Silicon Valley) both managed to survive the dot.com bust, and still deliver food from great restaurants without the super high mark-up. Up to 15% for the business charge just seems excessive; and already seems to be pushing some of their clientele into establishing their own services. The Japanese grill mentioned has a nice clean easy to use web site. Nice enough that if I knew I wanted food from them, I'd order directly from them to save both me and them money.
Of course, I admit sometimes, I used Waiter's On Wheels when I was uncertain what I wanted for dinner. Having access to a large array of menu's that aren't limited to pizza specials has its own value.
http://www.kwrestaurants.com/category/delivery.htm
In NYC, everyone has a huge stack of menus. The best thing about a paper menu is that you can write on it. When we want to try out a new restaurant, we'll try Menupages.com or do a google search to see if there's a menu online, but once we've ordered, we rely on the paper menu.
The paper menu allows you to write comments on the page; things like "slow delivery, order early", "ask for chopsticks", and "DO NOT ORDER FROM HERE!"; it's fine if you can remember everything, but it's useful for others looking through your menus trying to decide where to order from.
Another reason paper menus are better is you can put them in any order. Sometimes you only want menus for places that deliver 24x7; you can easily do this with multiple menus, one in the "all menus" folder, one in the folder sorted by type, and one in the folder sorted by hour.
If they did this online, allowed you make annotations on certain menus, allowed you to create your own sorting scheme, then it would be useful, but I doubt it would ever replace the NYC menu folder.
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
Delivery Butler (site here) is a Detroit based food takeout delivery service, and they've been around for some time and doing very well (since Nov 2001). I've used their online interface, and didn't have to do anything until the fella came by 45 minutes later, and dropped off my food, and drove away with my tip. I even paid my entire bill online. I'm sure there are others, too.. so not to be one of those boneheads, but this really isn't news.
On a side note, ever wonder why plumbing terms are so sexual?
I live in Cambridge, and I've been ordering through Foodler.
I like Foodler's interactive maps and the "My Menu" feature. It really saves me time, as I don't have to re-read the menus the next time I want to order.
Over here in Warsaw, I've been using a number of various services like this: Room Service, , etc. Thanks to these places, I have a total of 48 restaurants I can order from at the click of a button (or a phone call, if I feel like it.)
We even have 3 (mostly) high-end supermarkets that offer online ordering/delivery out of their brick-and-mortar locations. From what I understand, they've been making out like gangbusters.
Kozmo.com was the greatest.
Used to deliver for these guys. They're a bunch of jerks. Their service area is limited to a good chunk of central Austin (TX) and most customers are from the University of Texas. How about discussing the terrible situation plaguing the delivery trade with asshole students tipping only 5 cents for a couple burritos delivered to their door. Bunch of philistines. (Might be closed down for the summer)
887321 = 337*2633
It may not me multi-city but I use it all the time: Zifty.com
They deliver food -- and much more. Cigarettes, soda, magazines, game & dvd rentals, condoms... It's a huge list of food, drink, and convenience items. The prices aren't hugely out of line with going and picking up the items yourself.
Oh wait, nothing's changed. Never mind.
http://www.simpledine.com/ has been providing this same functionality for some time, except that they are more widespread.
Cleveland has had Deliver Me Food for years.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
You misspelled "advertisement". Its not spelled a-r-t-i-c-l-e.
Has the poster never heard of Diningin.com?
Not only is it available in multiple major metropolitan (Sorry NYC folks, you'll have to ZipCar [ZipCar.com] this one as well) areas, but you can order from restaurants online and have it delivered to you.
Sure, DiningIn.com not free but as far as I can tell all this service does is make it so you don't have to use a phone to call in your take out order and that doesn't seem that useful to either consumers or restuarants - little wonder it's failed before, I would guess.
Something intelligent here.
http://www.diningin.com/
We use it all of the time... very convenient.
I used to drive for QuikDine, an outfit in Springfield, Missouri that's been doing this for years for a number of local restaurants. (They fired me after I had about a million accidents in their car. Ah well.) They had warmer ovens and fridges in their cars powered off the batteries, and were always having problems with the cars' electrical systems.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
I dunno, I've been able to do this with Pizza Hut in at least two metropolitan areas in flyover country (Denver and Minneapolis).
I looked at this a little more closely. Can you find one economist or personal finance guru who thinks it is a good idea to save money in an investment vehicle like this one (tax withholding) which offers absolutely no return! How is it "help" to force someone to do this when it takes away the option of investing it or putting it in a savings bank so they can get interest?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Cuisine Limousine has 57 restaurants to choose and you can order online or phone. http://cuislimo.com/ Great for party platters!!!
What's "new" in this announcement/advertisement is that they've opened the service up to home users. Basically every law firm in New York uses this service to supply menus and dinner to their associates - I was temping in law firms for about 6 months, and used SW at every firm I was at to order food after hours. Corporate customers are undoubtedly underwriting the bill for the new "home users" section. It's worth it for the law firms to keep their associates at their desks for ungodly numbers of hours. The restaurants get to penetrate the corporate market without having to set up a delivery infrastructure or build up a reputation for corporate catering. And Seamless Web clearly figure they can add a nickel- and dime-level profits to their solid corporate base.
Amor omnia vincit. Occasionally.
I hate to point this out but in Canada Swiss Chalate has had web order menu for over a year now. It's the same as a take out menu and my single biggest problem with is the hour wait to get my lunch/dinner.
Life is like untied shoe laces; it always tripping you up and getting in your way.
While we're still small ( launched in October ), if you're in downtown Baltimore or Fell's Point, check out https://www.fetchfood.com/. I am a co-founder and the CTO; we're abut to release a catering service and a major update to the site using pure XHTML to better about platform independence. Currently accepting PayPal, we also can work with purchase orders, and will be launching our own merchant account this month for direct credit card payments.
"You can't dissect him, predict him, which of course means he's not a lunatic at all."
Delivermefood.com has been doing this in the Greater Cleveland, Ohio area for quite some time now. (I suggest Kopin's for Ribs - Yum!)
Nipok Nek
Why choose white shoes?
But we never really lost it here in the SF area (and others.) Waiter.com is alive... well and hiring. (and you don't need an MCSA!)
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
www.eatoutin.com
The Code Ninja is swift with his tool, precise in his delivery, and deadly accurate in his execution.
Since we're all posting our favorite delivery places, then in Los Angeles, Pink Dot is the best. They bring you just about everything food wise. And will also bring you liquir and cigarettes. Although I think they're re-doing they're online system... so you may actually have to call them...
And if you can't decide what you want you can always use http://takeoutquickpick.com/. It decides what to order for you.
I live in a college town, and there are at least two online places that have been around for a few years now... you can order from pretty much any food service in town and they'll deliver it within 20 minutes or so.
Up in Boston we use Foodler.
I have a business idea, but no real interest in making it work. So, I'm putting it up on slashdot in the hopes that someone else will. Here we go:
IM chatbots as the interface to delivery services.
So, for example, I IM "PizzaDude500" on AIM.
Me: hey
PD: Hi, this is Pizza Dude, would you like to hear our specials for today?
Me: ok
PD: We have a large one topic for $10. Or you can order from the menu.
Me: menu
PD: [spits out a menu with prices]
Me: large calzone
PD: Is that all?
Me: yeah
PD: The total is $8.21. Can I have your zipcode?
Me: 55555
PD: You're in Anytown, Texas. Your nearest Pizza Dude is at 123 Easy Street, correct?
Me: y
PD: Please enter your address and phone number, and we'll forward your order to the store.
Me: 543 Elm Street, 555-5555
PD: Do you want me to remember your address in the future?
Me: ok
PD: I've sent your order to the store, the pizza should arrive by 6:00pm. Thanks for ordering from Pizza Dude.
Meanwhile, in the pizza shop, a printer spits out a sheet with the order. If a person gets lost in the menu, they can also ask to chat directly with someone at the store, but that will take longer than chatting with a bot, of course. The beauty part is the second time you order:
Me: large, pepperoni
PD: The subtotal is $12.11. Is that all?
Me: yeah
PD: Should I have the shop at 123 Easy St. send it to your address at 543 Elm Street?
Me: y
PD: Your order will be there by 7:30pm. Thanks for ordering from Pizza Dude.
I remember seeing this last year... those commercials in the DC area for "wokontheweb.com" were some of the most godawful creepy minutes of commercial, er, cinema, ever.
Course, I still remember them one year down the road... so go figure.
Online Takeout delivery never went away.
t ialise.jsp
4 (Papa Johns in York)
From where I am in England I can order groceries online from:
http://www.tesco.com/superstore/p/help/quick.htm
http://www.asda.com/asda_shop/sys/web_sys01_b_ini
Pizza from:
http://www.papajohns.co.uk/pizzas.aspx?StoreID=19
http://www.dominos.co.uk/
Those are the places I remember anyway, but suffice to say that it's pretty easy to get things delivered online.
I've been living in Cairo, Egypt for the past year. Here they deliver everything and anything, quickly might I add. When we first arrived many people told us about Otlob.com which is a delivery site. They have signed up restaurants and stores. Most people I know use the food delivery. It works great and doesn't cost a dime to use. If Egypt can make this work, why can't someone in the US make it work?
I wonder how this got to Slashdot, but I have been using Raleigh Takeout since 2004. There are other similar services in the area like campusfood.
The main issue with online takeout is that it is still not fast enough to justfiy not ordering pizza online through papa johns when you're lazy.
One of the good features of RaleighTakeout was that you could use a credit card offline as the delivery person had a Cingular device that had a credit card reader. It wasn't flawless though, and reception sucked sometimes, so they dropped the device idea.
We have multiple places to order take out from online. All Asian varities, pizza, deli. College town. Perhaps we are spoiled?
You want online fast food? You want a dependable central service that can do phone-in take-away (carry-out)and delivery? Then www.larosas.com is the best place for it. Family owned and operated. Centralized dispatch number that uses caller id and verifies verbally your delivery address. User friendly options for ordering and paying (cash, cheque, or credit card).
.pdf file adn printed. The online ordering menu is interactive and is dispatched by the central office to the correct restaurant.
Not trying to boast, but when in Cincinnati, you can call 513-347-1111 or just fax your order in as well. Even easier is the on line odrering. The menu can be downloaded to a
There is even fax and online otions around here for other great local eateries and restauants. So fax in your order or do it online. I rather would trust a local chain over a regional or national chain. There is even a business here that can do orders online from local restaurants via fax, phone or internet for a small surcharge.
Romanes eunt domus? People called Romanes, they go the 'ouse? It says Romans go home. No it doesn't. What's Latin fo
There's a local company here in our town (gatorfood.com) that does exactly that..
:/
We probably have a better market for this since we are uni. town and the food service space is vast and popular.
AFAIK: The problem is the delivery drivers get the screws since they are technically contractors, and work for only tips.. which alot of customers do not do becuase the delivery company slaps on a $3.95 delivery fee..
(I tell every person I meet that complains about not making money working for them to just go work for Dominos or PizzaHut as they will be garenteed money, and thier taxes will probably be easier too..)
----- The internet has given everyone the ability to have their voice heard equally as loud.. even if they shouldn't be
I can't wait till the day I can order a roll of duct tape, some tampons for my lady, vegan food, a button up shirt and some toilet paper. dog food, Will that day ever come?