Takeout Online

Great Kirkland Restaurant

2010-02-26T00:19:00.001-08:00

Another great visit to George's. Always friendly, fast & inviting atmosphere. Extensive menu, including breakfast. Recommend it without hesitation!

in reference to: George's Place - Kirkland, Washington (view on Google Sidewiki)

Should we dance? No, let's chat!

2009-03-09T13:36:00.000-07:00

The other day I came across a new service called ChatToText.

Take a look at their 5-minute video for details.

The concept behind it is pretty simple - it's a service that allows you to chat from your computer. Certainly not a novel concept, but what makes this unique is that you can chat with the person who isn't on the Internet, who may not be anywhere near a computer. How? Via SMS (aka text messaging).

Here's how it works. You get on a web site and click on 'Text Me On My Cell Phone' button (like the one you see here). You see the usual chat window, where you type your short message and click to send it. Within a few seconds I receive this message on my cell phone, click Reply and enter a reply in my phone and hit send (no need to select where it goes - it already knows it). Within a few seconds the chat window shows my reply and you're ready to enter another message, if you wish and the process repeats.

So, essentially you are chatting, although a little slower than usual, but you are chatting.

Since everyone nowadays has cell phones, and all of them have SMS messaging (texting) - ChatToText service could be very useful. For example a restaurant could have such button right on their web site and their customers could ask a question like 'What's today's special?' and get an immediate reply. Or they could ask if you had an opening for 20 this evening.

Of course the question one might ask - couldn't they just pick up the phone and call? Of course they could, but then there's a chance of getting a busy tone or being placed on hold or being unable to understand someone on the other end (no disrespect intended to anyone, I'm one of those people with an accent myself). So, I think it does have possibilities.

Another interesting side-effect of this is privacy. If you wanted people to text you on you cell - you could simply give them your cell number and then they could. But for obvious privacy reasons - nobody would want to do so. So, this capability protects your privacy (since the person initiating the chat simply sees and clicks on a button), and it gives you the convenience of being able to receive such text messages on your cell.

Last but not least, you don't necessarily even have to use this for chat communication, you could could also use it as a simple way for someone to text you, right from your web site or blog.

For many restaurants, especially smaller ones, having computers infrastructure, Internet connections etc. is simply not an option they want to pursue. Whether it would be for technological reasons, financial reasons or any other reasons - we see lack of technology in many restaurants daily. But with this kind of tool - they can participate in interacting with their customers who do like and do use the Internet and its tools, via a cell phone, without missing a beat.

So, check out this 5-minute video and see if this kind of service would work for you. They only charge $6/mo for the service, which is pretty affordable for most, even in today's economic climate. To offset/eliminate the cost - you might want to participate in their incentive program, certainly not mandatory but something to consider.

Kindle2 for Online Ordering? Why not?

2009-02-09T22:17:00.000-08:00

Amazon announced the new Kindle2 today and from the initial reviews it looks like a worthy follow-up to the original e-reader.

After reading yet again about its free wireless access to the Internet, ability to have relatively large storage (when it comes to books and blogs, anyway), nice display and pondered the possibility of using such device for restaurants to receive online orders.

Takeout Online has been providing online ordering via fax (for vast majority of our clients) and some via computer/printer environment (where Internet connectivity was a must). The reason vast majority of restaurants we serve do get orders via fax is because most of them don't have computers and Internet connectivity and certainly aren't about to spend the money to have such just to be able to receive online orders.

But Kindle2 offers built-in Internet access from anywhere, as well as a nice display and one could easily set up either a private blog where orders would be shown or just a web site. Each restaurant would have their own feed of orders. All of the benefits of Internet access without the monthly fee.

Even though this approach is doable, reasonably simple to implement and should work very well - it does have some drawbacks. First, the cost of the device, something most restaurants would have a hard time justifying. Although that could be countered with the monthly Internet access fees, which would make it pay for itself in about 6 months, but still that's one drawback. The second drawback is employee use of such an expensive device. That might also be an issue, since so many employees are not very savvy when it comes to technology or taking care of someone else's $359 device. Then there's the theft issue, it's mighty easy to walk away with one of these or leave on the counter and have someone else walk away with it. And last, but not least - the lack of print functionality, which many prefer - they want to have a paper in the kitchen from which to make the orders.

Clearly, this device wouldn't be for any restaurant, but I think some better class restaurants might benefit from such an arrangement. If nothing else - one could always use it for something esoteric like... I don't know... reading books :)

We are NOT in eating recession

2009-02-06T12:59:00.000-08:00

Image via Wikipedia

Just read this article, submitted by Jeffrey Summers via Twitter, that concurs with our own experience on Takeout-Online.com, which in essence indicates that people are still busy, they still need to eat, they still don't have time (or don't want) to cook and therefore ordering takeout is as popular, even though recession is all around.

I'm sure the impact is there and there are restaurants that are hurting and going out of business, but, at least at this point, it's a minority. We haven't had a single restaurant on Takeout Online go out of business in recent past and haven't heard from anyone that they would be, although some have indicated that the business has dropped a bit, for some.

Geographic location and local economies are certainly a big part of this mix as well, but as the article points out - people are ordering takeout, which is still something that every restaurant should offer, with the convenience of online ordering of course :)

People with no life... ordering takeout

2009-02-06T00:11:00.000-08:00

A few days ago at 3-4am there were a few takeout orders that came in for hundreds of items, clearly bogus. Obviously someone has no life and wanted to test their form-filling skills.

The bigger question though - what to allow on a restaurant web site, in terms of information that would be considered acceptable. Certainly one could check for short name entered, but some Asian names are 2 characters long, so that wouldn't really work for all situations. One could limit the order to 10 or 20 items, but then again, when Microsoft places an order for a gathering - that's not going to be sufficient. So, in the end it makes sense to just ignore the losers who have nothing better to do and concentrate on real improvements to the service and support of normal, legitimate customers.

Of course this isn't only a situation with online ordering, I'm sure there are pranksters who call on the phone and do the same thing, although they'd have to use different tactics.

In the end online ordering is still a better alternative, because the restaurant doesn't waste time dealing with bogus orderers, since online ordering service handles the order part on their behalf.

What's your experience? Comment here or tweet @takeoutonline

Economy Tanking but People ARE Eating Takeout

2009-02-01T13:08:00.001-08:00

Looking at the only orders, an interesting development. Seems like online takeout orders dropped when the whole economic woes news broke out, which was expected and not surprising to see. However, as time progressed and more and more bad news is coming out, without visible end (at least so far) in sight... and yet the orders have picked up and continue to come in at a decent clip.

Anyone else noticed a similar effect? No question that some restaurants are going out of business and clearly times are worse, but perhaps the fact that people still need to eat and still want the convenience of online ordering (i.e. don't want to cook, but do want to eat at home) explains it somewhat.

Thoughts anyone?

Takeout Online Business Opportunity (details)

2009-01-25T15:12:00.000-08:00

Note that I'm not asking for your name or e-mail to get this info, as seemingly everyone else does.

Here's the skinny... let's say you decide to take advantage of our business opportunity and join the Takeout Online effort.

The first thing that'll happen - we will sign a mutually beneficial agreement, where the details of our relationship will be fully spelled out, so both you and Takeout Online can know precisely what is expected, what will be done and how each will be compensated for the effort. Then we proceed to training, where we spend some quality time with you (phone, online) and show you precisely how we made this happen. This isn't rocket science, nor do we insist you use our approach, simply sharing with you what has worked for us over the years. The rest is up to you.

The business involves doing face-to-face with restaurant managers/owners. If you're not a people person - we don't recommend you jump into this opportunity. If you are (and you don't need to be a salesperson btw), then you have what it takes to succeed. You simply present the concept of online ordering as a possibility to the restaurant & ask them if they have a fax machine while you're at it (vast majority of restaurant do, but it helps to make sure).

The above approach takes us about 2 minutes or less to complete. It's not rocket science, it's not something blindingly new, even non-computer folks understanding the concept of ordering online and ordering takeout online isn't a stretch from there, so describing it doesn't take much time at all. If the person you're talking to likes the concept and wants to talk more - simply schedule a 15-20 minute gathering, at their convenience (many times they'd want to do it immediately, since it's so short).

In that 15-minute meeting you go through specifics of how our system works, if you/they have a computer - you can show them right then and there (although not mandatory). To me - this is trivial, but people like to hear the details, so you take them through the steps. Explain the benefits (there are a number and to help you - we have a flyer that you can use and hand to them) and drawbacks of traditional approach (there are a number as well) and explain the financial end of exactly how much we charge etc. Very basic stuff, anyone can do it (ANYONE).

If they see how great of a deal we're offering (and considering the fact that they could have it at little or no cost to them, considering all the benefits they get, and that we charge based on our performance) - it's a no brainer for most restaurants. However, some may reject it (which is ok, there are unreal untapped potential without them), the main thing is to just move on without dwelling on it (but don't be surprised if they call you later to say they reconsidered and want to be on Takeout Online after all... happened to us).

The next step is you gather some basic info, such as hours open, payment methods accepted, specials and any other relevant info and last (definitely not least) - don't forget the menu :) And you send us this info, along with logo, photos.

We proceed to put their menu together and put it online, invisible to the public at this point. You show them the fully functional menu and once they approve it - it goes live for public consumption.

We then provide you with some designs for doing in-store promotion via business cards, post cards etc. to get them going and you help them with some marketing ideas to promote the service, and of course any effort you can project locally to promote your restaurants would also be beneficial and speed things up, but not mandatory... most restaurants advertise, so you simply have them point out in their ads what to say.

One more things we encourage is to augment their web site to offer online ordering with a simple click. For those restaurants that have web sites - we can make the needed changes, at no cost to them. For those that don't - we can build one for them at little or no cost. Again, this is something we handle, so you don't need to worry about any of the technical aspects.

Once their orders start coming in - you get a percentage and we get a percentage... and continue to do so for as long as we have a relationship with you. If you are now asking what else is there to do? I'm getting paid for all these orders coming in from now on and there's nothing to do? And you're right - you WILL BE getting paid just as stated from that point on, from every single order coming in, from every single restaurant that you helped to put on Takeout-Online.com!

Well, there is one more thing we'd like you to do - continue to be a liaison between your restaurants and us. In other words, check with them perhaps once or twice a month, just to see if everything is ok. We mean that literally, once in 2-4 weeks you either drop by or call or e-mail (depending on their prefences) and just say 'hey John, is everything ok?' and they'll say 'yes' (since we'll know if there are any issues when those occur) and that's it. Typically once or twice a year a restaurant may want to change their menu. So, you get the new menu and e-mail it to us. We make the changes - done deal. We bill them, and if they are slow here and there - we may want you to intervene and see what the problem is. Out of many dozens of restaurants we dealt with - this problem happened once and the restaurant was taken offline, certainly irritating their customers and diminishing their takeout possibilities... so it's not something any restaurant of value would want to do. They might open another restaurant and would obviously want to talk to you about getting that onboard as well... simple enough.

That's really it. Initially you put some legwork into going around and talking to many people and getting many restaurants onboard. As time goes by - you do less and less of that (since clearly each local area only has so many restaurants), but continue to get more and more income, since more and more people find out, order and continue to order.

We will help you with every aspect of the business, as much as you'd like to be helped. What we won't do, since you're a business partner and not an employee of ours, is tell you how to live, if you will. We won't tell you where to work, when to work, whom to sign up and whom to reject - that's entirely up to you. With a certain volume of business, after 2 years we would be sharing the revenue 50/50.

So there you have it - the business opportunity on a plate ;), no gimmicks, no signups, no purchases of how-to tapes or e-books. Just the details spelled out. Obviously, the details involving info on how to sign up restaurants, and the compensation details are between you and us, so we'll deal with these details when we discuss them directly, but you should have a good idea of what this is about and how it works.

Feel free to contact Takeout Online if you have any other questions and/or if you would like to put your local restaurants online. You can e-mails here or Google 'takeout online', we'll be showing respectably high on Google (and thus all of your restaurants), in fact try it with "I'm feeling lucky" option to see just how respectably high we (humbly speaking) are.

Business Opportunity (the real deal)

2009-01-25T14:46:00.000-08:00

I was doing some browsing on the web and it's astonishing how many people want to sell you a way to make money on the Internet and yet practically none of them give you any details. Being somewhat educated on the fine art of selling, influencing people etc. - most of these offers follow the same pattern. Some people form JV (joint ventures) and cross-promote each other, build lists of buyers, share lists to some degree... anyway, after watching many of these - it's the same old same old.

You might ask - why? Why, if I know this - I still read them, follow them etc.? Because some of them do have something of value once in a while and because some of them do appear (and that's the key word) genuine.

But, regardless - I don't want to play that game. Takeout Online certainly has a valuable business opportunity to offer and I'll spell it out here and now without anyone needing to submit their blood type to get details (or even name/e-mail address).

Takeout Online has been around (about 8 years and counting) providing simple, hassle-free, fully hosted service, that can benefit every and any restaurant. Well, let me qualify that by saying - almost any restaurant. Restaurants that have so much business that getting more would be impossible for them to handle, should NOT participate in our program. It's only for restaurants that can stand some improvement in their bottom line and lucky for us - that's vast majority of restaurants out there.

The service we offer provides restaurants with ability to offer their customers online ordering for takeout (and/or delivery), without the restaurant having to make ANY changes to their infrastructure, staff or anything else. There are many benefits for the participating restaurants, but this is about the business opportunity, so I'll stick to that.

The customers get a simple and convenient one-stop shop where they can browse various menus in their local area, order from a restaurant (or restaurants) of their choice, conveniently online (or even reorder via their cell phone with extreme ease in a matter of seconds) and pick it up (or have it delivered, depending on the restaurant).

The only problem with that approach for us - we're here (i.e. Kirkland, Wa) and this service can (and does) work anywhere, as evidenced by our small, but still presence, in Nevada & Texas.

That's where the opportunity comes in - you could run your own Takeout Online business by partnering with us! We'll handle all of the technical aspects and you would handle the people aspect, ie be a liaison between us and your local restaurants. Interested in details? Coming in the next post.

FREE Giveaway - a difficult task

2008-12-28T22:09:00.000-08:00

As part of holiday festivities - Takeout Online was giving away some nice prizes. There were several mp3 players and $25 Gift Card to one of the local restaurants. The selection of recipients was based on how many orders someone made - the more orders - the better chance of winning one of these prizes.

So, we picked 4 winners and sent congratulatory e-mails to all of them. And the results were dismal to say the least. Even though the prizes are nice and anyone could use them in one way or another - we couldn't believe that giving away FREE prizes would be this difficult.

Here are the results of the initial e-mails... and of course these e-mails came from an organization that these people frequented a number of times, and got e-mails with news in the past and still... the grand prize, a nice Samsung MP3 player with retractable speaker - the winner didn't bother to reply at all to arrange to get it to them. 2 ipods had somewhat better luck, one person replied as requested and made arrangements, the 2nd person didn't for a few days. Then finally she did reply asking to confirm that it wasn't some typical bogus offer, which I can certainly understand and appreciate - there are plenty of those around. So, she got her confirmation reply immediately, including the invitation to call the phone number to verify, the phone being the same as listed on Takeout-Online.com. She then was silent for a few more days (so much for getting it pre-Christmas). Then I sent an e-mail indicating that if she doesn't reply - we'll have to give it to someone else. She did reply, indicating she wanted to meet at certain time in town today at Starbucks. I went there, right on time requested, waited for 45 minutes and nobody showed up. There was no e-mail or any communication as to why. The last person - also didn't bother to respond to get their $25 Gift Card.

It's amazing to me why it's so difficult to give stuff away for FREE.. ??? If this was some strange offer, or one with a catch of some sort - I could understand. But this is completely open offer, with no strings of any kind attached and still people don't bother to receive it.

Oh well, out of thousands of people that ordered from Takeout Online in the past - shouldn't be that difficult to find someone who'll appreciate being appreciated... or maybe not, I guess we'll see in the next few days.

Business Thievery or Why YOU Should Avoid FREE Trials

2008-12-21T02:39:00.000-08:00

I have a neighbor who has a restaurant, so naturally he became a client, but his web site was hosted by an organization hosting similar ethnic restaurants. These folks did his site, for a lot more than Takeout Online charges I might add, and they were charging him 'healthy' hosting fees, also quite a bit more than we charge, but he was relatively comfortable with them and all I needed to do was to gain access so that I can integrate his site with Takeout Online, something that is typically a few minutes process, since it's just adding appropriate links.

What followed was a multi-months ordeal with his vendors first stating that they'd make the changes, they wanted to charge him money for those like it was a big deal, which of course I knew that it wasn't, and now I was irritated, because it looked like highway robbery and they refused to change the site as I asked them to, something the restaurant owner agreed with me on and told them verbally and in written form. The vendors accused me of trying to steal their client and other bologna that my 4yr old wouldn't use. Eventually I had to threaten them that if they don't comply with making these few changes - I'll simply recommend that the client changes hosts, because it was ridiculous beyond belief.

Eventually someone in their organization seemed to show some sign of brain power and made the changes, not precisely what I asked for, but close enough and that was that. Obviously nobody was trying to steal the business from these people, although my neighbor was also getting sick of the whole debacle and would've changed companies in a heartbeat if I told him to do so. But, as I said, that wasn't my intent and that's not how we do business.

Unfortunately, that doesn't preclude others from being as ethical. Another client of mine, amazingly of the same ethnic background, was getting online orders daily and even though he was a little bit of a slow pay - we still had a good relationship. All of a sudden, after 2 years of business together, I noticed that his orders simply stopped. I looked at his web site, the site that was in very poor shape with missing content, links broken etc., which we completely revamped for him and added online ordering... and noticed that the Order button has been changed to go to another place, an ordering service from another company. At first, I thought it was someone hacking and started investigating the company doing this. It turns out they have a single restaurant, this one on their site and noticed that they're part of a hosting company (or they are the hosting company). And they moved the whole site to them, conveniently taking credit as if they've done the site themselves, and obviously my FTP information no longer worked, since the host has been changed.

I went to talk to the owner to see what's going on, because now it was clear that it had to be done with his blessing. He was busy, but I made a point to stick around and talk to the man. He said that yes indeed he made this change, not that he wants to sever his relationship with us, but these people offered him 'free everything' to try it and he went for it. He then stated that he only received a few orders and he'll likely dump them, but asked me for a couple of weeks to wait.

The moral of this story of course, as much as I'd prefer not to lose him - this is a perfect example of him cutting his own throat. It's not a case where it's expensive for him to use our services - his prices are adjusted to include our fee, so it costs him nothing. If he doesn't return with a guarantee to me that he'll never pull a stunt like this again, I'll force him to hire someone and redo the web site, so he'll lose there. He'll lose his high search engine rankings due to us. It's likely he'll lose on some other issues as well.

Mostly I blame these thieves who don't have any ethics. I can understand if someone's unhappy with their providers and they're looking elsewhere - but this wasn't the case at all. They're nothing more than predators and don't deserve to be in business. The owner I blame for one thing - not calling me and giving me basic courtesy of asking about doing this temporary or permanent change. Certainly he can do whatever he wants, in fact our verbal agreement with all Takeout Online clients clearly indicates that a restaurant may stop using our services at any point, without any specific reason. But one would think that after 2 years of successful mutually beneficial business - there would be some common courtesy exercised. I guess not.

Restaurant owners don't know the technical aspects of these changes and they don't understand the implications of doing a '2-week free trial'. Even if this owner now decides to return to Takeout Online - he now has to go through potentially painful (read the post above) move of the domain; his existing customers have no idea what's going on, since yesterday they were ordering one way, today another and tomorrow - who knows, and he certainly lost major credibility points in my eyes, so whatever special arrangements I agreed to before to help him out will likely be out of the question going forward. It's just not worth it, in my opinion... but I could be slightly biased, since the business was stolen from my company.

Domain Name Hijacking

2008-07-26T08:19:00.000-07:00

More and more restaurants are having web sites, putting their identity online for all to see and utilize, not realizing that they can easily lose it and potentially never get it back.

A new client of Takeout Online owns a beautiful Mexican restaurant. He signed up with some company, who undoubtedly overcharged him for services and built a nice little web site. They also charged him about 20 times in hosting fees compared to today's norm. We at Takeout Online are interested in making money, of course, but not by using mob techniques to accomplish it, so we informed the gentleman of his options. He gladly agreed to switch to our proposed host and indicated that the company he dealt with originally is no longer in business (surprise, surprise).

When we tried to figure out how to move his site to the new host - we ran into a problem. His domain was registered (and paid for) with domainsbyproxy.com, which is an organization that keeps such info private. Contacting godaddy, the company that was the registrar didn't accomplish anything and we were told to contact domainsbyproxy people. Contacting them didn't accomplish anything and we were told to contact ICANN. Contacting them didn't accomplish anything and they referred us back to domainsbyproxy, although after actually paying attention to what we indicated as transpired - their recommendation was to get a lawyer.

Of course originally contacting the first two entities resulted in us filling out a form, attaching a copy of the owner's driver's license as well as business license. None of that helped - the domain was hijacked and we had no way to get it back.

This was almost beyond belief. The domain had a hyphenated name, first part being an atypical Mexican word and second being the name of the mall where this restaurant is situated, which is also a very unusual name. Why in the world would anyone, other than this restaurant, be interested in the name, since it's absolutely useless to anyone else. This makes no sense at all, yet the domain is hijacked and our only recourse was to get a lawyer involved, which of course isn't worth the cost and hassle involved.

So, even though plenty of people know of this site and there's a really nice banner on the window of the restaurant informing everyone of the domain name - it'll all have to be changed now.

The moral of the story is - if you're a restaurant owner - do NOT trust ANY third party to handle your affairs behind your back and then be sorry, as in the example above. Make sure that whoever does your registrations, web site etc. clearly shows you the WHOIS information sheet with your name and contact information being the Administrative Contact. If they claim they have to put someone else there - deal with someone else, there's absolutely NO reason why they can't. They can be a Technical Contact for you, but you MUST BE the Administrative Contact. Have them provide you with the name of the hosting company they're using, as well as login information to the Control Panel for that company and verify that you indeed can log in. If you ever sever your relationship with these people - change the login password before severing the relationship, so nobody can harm you via your web site as an afterthought.

Protect yourself and your identity. Just as you wouldn't trust strangers with your wallet, don't trust them with your web site implicitly. There certainly are reputable companies that will do good by you, but since you don't know who they are - always verify and make sure to keep the main control, so that if you need to change companies, for any reason, your online assets will not get hijacked.

Automated Gratuity or How I Learned to Eat at Home

2007-12-22T13:11:00.000-08:00

No, I'm not giving up on Takeout one bit, but this morning was an interesting and new experience for me. My wife & I wanted to order some crepes for breakfast and in the little town where we reside - there aren't that many places to go for breakfast. So, there's this one place, which is unbelievably popular, although mostly that's due to them being the only prominent place in the entire town and their food is decent, not phenomenal but decent.

One thing about that place is that it's somewhat overpriced, but again, considering their monopoly in town - it's not that surprising. So, I called them to order something to go, figured by the time I get there they should be done with it... you know how that works...

To my surprise the lady on the phone told me that the price would include gratuity of 15%. I agreed, not really thinking about it much and went on my way.

On the way I started analyzing that conversation and got totally turned off by the concept. After all - isn't gratuity suppose to be something you voluntarily provide & is strictly based on the quality of service delivered? Certain there are plenty of better restaurants that inform you right on their menus that they'll charge something automatically for handling larger parties of people, which is totally understandable, although I certainly would call something else rather than what typical tips are for. But to have a place force a gratuity on me, when I placed a phone-based order (yes, these people are obviously not on the ball in the online ordering department either, although they could certainly benefit from one based on what I've seen... just haven't evolved to Takeout Online yet) for 2 people - now driving I thought it was totally outrageous.

So, what did I do once I got to the restaurant... well, I went back to my typical thinking of 'nobody forced me to place that order', so I just paid and left, but I did want to make this entry on it. I hope what The Original House of Pancakes did isn't the norm to come. It's wrong and there's no need to redefine the word 'gratuity', which dictionary.com describes as:

1.	a gift of money, over and above payment due for service, as to a waiter or bellhop; tip.

2.	something given without claim or demand.

Would I order from them again because of this little situation, which cost me a measly $1.50 extra? In a word - NO!

After slaving at a restaurant for 7 months in my youth - I certainly know and appreciate the concept of tips, but I'm totally opposed to turning it into revenue generator, and I will not give my business to anyone who misuses the concept.

Philosophically speaking, it's rather amazing how such an inconsequential amount of money can cost a customer, permanently no less. But it does and restaurants should consider such moves carefully. In the end I think they'll become losers, not winners, even when they're the only game in town.

P.S. Btw, my father-in-law makes better crepes, so I'll be fine... :)

Would you order takeout from your cell phone?

2007-08-16T12:15:00.001-07:00

According to the latest statistics - 29% of takeout orders are being placed via cell phones. Considering how prolific cell phone use is in today's society - it's not that surprising. With more and more phones being connected to the Internet - the question I have - would these same 29% or more place their takeout order using online ordering, instead of calling via voice?

Of course using cell phones for web is cumbersome at best, at least on most of them, including the Jesus phone (sorry, Apple). It's simply impossible to replicate the big screen environment on a dinky screen. People aren't buying bigger and bigger monitors for their computers because they'd like to consume more desk space - they want to see more, in an easier to see size... in other words bigger is better. Clearly there are some that go against the tide, but nobody's ditching their 22" monitors for any kind of cell phone, when it comes to web-based computing.

So, back to cell phones. Now that we've established that scrolling through potentially large menus is painful enough on the big screen - cell phone would make the experience rival torture, to put it mildly. So, in your opinion, what would make it simple enough to use on cell phone for you to use it for ordering takeout?

One possibility would be for you to be able to preserve your online orders and assign them a number. Each order would have a unique number. Then you could text this number to the appropriate destination and presto - your order is magically submitted with all details, payment info etc., just as you did in the past. Would that be simple enough? Would you use it if it was that simple? Other ideas? - Certainly welcome your thoughts on the subject.

SEO for Restaurants - Online Marketing

2007-04-25T13:05:00.000-07:00

There plenty of companies now that offer online marketing options, a number of which push SEO services (Search Engine Optimization), so that everyone and their brother finds your restaurant online and then crowds of people from all over the globe will swoop down to your doorstep and you'll make more money than Bill Gates. Ok, perhaps I'm being a bit sarcastic here... but then again, perhaps not.

I won't name names here, but I did get approached by one such company and even though Takeout Online is highly visible in Google and some other search engines (are there others?), thought I'd see what they can and will do. To make a long, somewhat expensive, and totally disappointing story short - it was a total waste of resources. Yes, these people can get you some other pages built that will be findable by other people, using some specific words and phrases. Can you guarantee that your customers will use those very words? Of course not, and thus the concept falls on its face. Can they guarantee that only customers in your restaurant's takeout reach will see this ad? Of course not. So, will anyone order takeout from London to New York? Highly unlikely (although someone did try).

Having a web site for any restaurant is a must. As for improving the customer experience and generating wider reach of takeout audience and improving the bottom line... that can all be done by offering some useful and compelling content, such as basic contact and info about the restaurant and offering online ordering of takeout. Anyone who'd use search to find a place to eat will surely be savvy enough and interested in ordering food online. Being part of a larger network of restaurants immediately has great benefits, since it's much more likely to be found when you're part of a large, more visible group. Takeout-Online.com provides all of these basic elements of success for restaurants of any size and type, with extreme simplicity, hassle-free and most importantly - extremely cost-effectively.

There are some businesses that could potentially benefit from companies that do SEO and SEM (Search Engine Marketing), but restaurants would do better to steer away from those and not waste their hard earned money.

Some people just don't get it

2007-01-23T22:47:00.000-08:00

In talking to various restaurants about Takeout Online, it's interesting to note the vast variety of people I meet. People that are aggressive, shy, opinionated, quiet, people with accents, people who can't understand a word of English yet run restaurants somehow.

Mostly restaurant owners understand the many benefits of Takeout Online, yet some just don't seem to get it and even more importantly - they don't even seem to want to get it. Prior to the holidays we had a special where a restaurant could get a FREE web site, FREE setup on Takeout Online and if they choose to - they could have the entire benefit package for FREE... forever!

This was one of these situations where it was too good to be true (as always, for a limited time of course), but still... and yet some didn't want to sign up. There's a single legitimate reason not to sign up and that's where a restaurant has so much business that they just couldn't possibly handle any more. The unfortunate reality is that practically no restaurants fit such description, especially the smaller ones and all of them try to make more money by advertising, coupons etc.

So, the question (philosophically speaking) - why wouldn't a restaurant sign up for a service that offers them far greater efficiency in handling takeout orders, eliminates lost orders (according to statistics - 79% of phone takeout orders are lost, with 69% of those people going to a competitor instead), empowers the customers to order at their convenience & pace (while allowing people at the restaurant to do their job and not spend all kinds of time on the phone), provides an accurate & error-free order, certainly increases customer satisfaction, to name just some of the benefits?

The answer (logically speaking) totally eludes me. For whatever reason some people just don't get it... I'll leave it at that.

uWink or touch that screen on your table

2006-10-17T12:02:00.000-07:00

uWink - an interesting new restaurant concept from Nolan Bushnell, of original Atari games fame, and Chuck E. Cheese. Not exactly a takeout place, but certainly an interesting concept in restaurants, and since they use computers for ordering - it fits in this blog, although it's way too early to tell if the concept will fly.

Apparently it's very computerized, with heavy use of new technologies, such as RFID, for tracking things. Ordering is done via a touch-screen computer built into each table. The computer is not only used for ordering, but for multimedia, game play (even between tables) and advertising, no doubt.

Restaurant Portions - bad for our waistline and wallet? Not necessarily.

2006-09-05T22:12:00.000-07:00

In a recent article in the Miami Herald the point was made regarding how portions in the restaurants aren't congruent with the intake (of calories, carbs etc.) recommended for healthy human consumption, thus creating more people with weight difficulties.

Some people, as an acquaintance of mine pointed out, simply take the extra food home and divide it into 2 or more meals. This isn't only a healthier and more appropriate way to eat, but also does wonders for cost savings, since a $12 meal split into maybe 3 portions winds up costing only $4 per meal, typically less than what one would spend by cooking at home.

The moral of this is to watch what you eat and just as important - how much you eat and split the extraneous food into multiple leftovers. Of course what makes this approach that much easier is doing the same via takeout. You simply order online, and have multiple meals in the comfort of your home, enjoying the convenience and the savings while eating the appropriate amounts of food. And thus having large portions isn't so bad, after all... provided a little common sense is applied.

Looooonnnnnnnggggggg Lines at Restaurants

2006-07-20T10:36:00.000-07:00

A new trend has been emerging, especially in more popular chain restaurants, biggest culprit of which is currently The Cheesecake Factory - long, long, lines before you even get to order your food. Sure they have little flashy beepers to notify you when it's your turn and they have large space for waiting (there's always the outside too)... but it makes one stop and think whether the hassle involved in a simple meal is worth it. Obviously for a lot of people - it is, otherwise the phenomenon at hand wouldn't be there.

This is where Takeout Online can certainly assist in the effort. Restaurants would benefit by being able to perform their duties much more efficiently and consumers would find the efficiency and convenience gratifying and certainly adding to the enjoyment of the experience... after all isn't that what it's all about?

Customers will be able to place their orders in the convenience and comfort of their home, office, library - wherever, without the limitations of time, space and noise, which they always endure onsite. They will be able to see the entire menu and take as long as they wish to make their decision, without anyone asking 'Do you need a few more minutes? I can come back...'. Then, if the restaurant does due diligence - when the customers finally arrive at the indicated time - they can immediately proceed to sit down and either avoid the wait for food entirely or only wait a short period of time. There's no need to get the waiter to come and take the order (thus saving time and eliminating any errors the waiter may make) and shouldn't be any need to wait in line.

The restaurant would get the orders ahead of customers' arrival, thus be able to manage their processes more carefully and efficiently. Try to prepare the food ahead of time, so by the time the customers arrive - the food will be ready to serve them. Since there won't be a need to have waiters take orders - that'll certainly save significant amount of waiters' time, since it's a repetitive process and can take quite a while, especially for large groups. Having the order info ahead of time would also aid in managing tables and schedule of arrivals better. And of course if someone can be seated upon arrival, with food prepared and ready to serve - that would also be a significant time saver in terms of time customers stay at a restaurant, thus enabling more customers in the same day... all clearly translating to a better bottom line... which from a restaurant's point of view - isn't what it's all about?

Takeout is not just for eating - choose your Wine

2006-05-26T09:29:00.000-07:00

A new website, Winelog, is an excellent resource for those who want their wine, but don't know their wine or perhaps want to compare notes on their knowledge. The site offers ability to view and rate wines as well as add comments. The rating system is driven by the community, it's 'social wining' if you will, and provides a clean and simple approach to picking wine in style, quickly and easily.

Tipping point

2006-05-24T10:24:00.000-07:00

To tip or not and if so - how much? Seems like an ever present question when one goes out. Recently due to a change in food as we know it, with stores opening delis and fast-casual becoming the new breed of restaurants - the landscape is changing and the tipping question still exists.

According to an article in the Register Guard (Eugene, OR), tipping varies depending on the restaurant, but the old sentiment seems to still rule the day - it's up to the tipper and it's based on the service.

Takeout and Restaurant Owners

2006-04-30T00:07:00.000-07:00

It seems that takeout is hugely popular and continues to grow by leaps and bounds. Yet, many restaurant owners just don't seem to get the importance of that trend for their business success. Case in point my Takeout-Online.com service. Many restaurants I talked to see the light and sign up for the service, considering how affordable, flexible and unintrusive it is to their business and how much impact it can have on it. Yet, even though I mention that the service can be risk-free and even cost-free, I still get a response sometimes that "it's not in the budget" or "we're not ready to start yet"... which always perplexes me... how can something that doesn't cost anything be "not in budget"?

Restuarant Owners need to look beyond just doing what they've always been doing and adopt some of these new tools, like the Takeout Online service, to be able to stay competitive or their competition will do them in using these tools.

Personal Chefs

2006-04-04T06:34:00.000-07:00

In addition to takeout out of restaurants, a lot of families use personal chefs to be able to not cook and yet still eat high quality foods at home. This article describes some example of this growing trend.

Fast-casual and convenience

2006-03-27T23:20:00.000-08:00

The Arizona Republic newspaper had an article regarding 'fast-casual' restaurants and how convenience and takeout rule the world of restaurants more and more.

According to the article, some of the fast-casual restaurants's takeout accounts for 40% of their business.

Interestingly enough, all of the restaurants mentioned in the article currently don't offer online ordering, which would improve their bottom line even more so if they did.

A Great Opportunity for Anyone... with Right Attitude!

2006-03-14T21:33:00.000-08:00

As we move into our new expansion schedule - we're looking for good people throughout the country to help us with bringing Takeout Online service to the restaurant industry nationwide.

Current opportunity is significant, because we're not only offering a piece of the action, but a piece of the pie as well. That's right, with our current plan (which I can't divulge here) - you could get a piece of the company if you actively participate with us in this important growth stage.

If you have some time on your hands and are willing to do some face-to-face time with your local restaurants - you could be looking at a very substantial residual income in not too distant future and own a piece of the company as well. Just about anyone with decent people skills can participate. I always say that the most important qualification is attitude and that's really what counts.

We provide the training, the marketing plan and materials and handle all of the technical aspects. We also have a comprehensive Web site specifically dedicated to the members of our team, where they can get a wealth of information, easily communicate and collaborate with each other and access any and all related printed materials.

Interested? Contact Takeout Online for details.

New Takeout Statistics

2006-03-14T21:27:00.000-08:00

There was an article published in Wisconsin State Journal regarding a dramatic rise in takeout consumption and decrease in home cooking.

"The number of dinners made at home from scratch continues to freefall. It dropped another 7 percent over the last two years, and now accounts for 32 percent of all evening meals in the U.S., according to the National Restaurant Association."

This trend isn't surprising, considering how busy everyone is these days... but it's also interesting in the fact that people don't just go out to eat, but instead get takeout to still enjoy a family dinner together.

Introduction to Takeout

2006-03-08T20:25:00.000-08:00

This blog is dedicated to a new phenomenon in the USA, a new lifestyle for ever-growing number of people, a different (somewhat) approach to the basic human need... a need to eat!

The discussions will revolve about food, restaurants, business opportunities (related to takeout), trends and philosophy behind it all.

The idea is to create one of the favorite stops with 'food for thought', if you will, for all things takeout.

We started a company 5 years ago, dedicated to this very topic, allowing anyone to order online, called www.Takeout-Online.com, therefore you'll see our posting concentrating on the restaurants in our areas of influence, which is currently in the State of Washington, USA. However, there's a major effort underway to expand it into many more areas and that's where the business opportunity comes in (should you be interested in joining us in this effort of providing an extremely valuable service to both restaurants and consumers). You can get more information about Takeout Online here, and here and info regarding the business opportunity here.

I'll finish this introduction by signing it with the signature my partner signs his e-mails...

takeout!