Sudlebs
www.20somethingsudbury.ca
sudleb
express menu
20SS: WHO IS BEHIND EXPRESS MENU?
Jason: My name is Jason Hebert
George: And I’m George Van Embden and we’re the ones who started Express
Menu.
20SS: WHAT EXACTLY IS EXPRESS MENU?
Jason: Express Menu is an online directory of great restaurants in Sudbury, where
you can view full menu’s and order food for takeout or delivery right from your
computer or smart phone.
George: Yes, Express Menu is the fast, easy way to order food online.
We make deciding what you want for dinner tonight just a little bit easier.
20SS: WHERE DID THIS IDEA COME FROM?
Jason: I was actually chilling with my wife and we REALLY didn’t want to cook
anything. So we decided to order take out but wanted to try something different.
That’s when I discovered it was nearly impossible to find a good directory of
restaurants in Sudbury complete with full menus. The idea grew from there. I just
found it crazy that something like this didn’t exist already.
George: We expanded on that idea to include online ordering and the project
kept getting bigger and bigger. Now the site is a complete E-Commerce website
where you can order food and pay using credit, PayPal and even cash on delivery.
20SS: WHY NOT JUST CALL TO ORDER?
George: Oh yeah and don’t forget that we offer delivery services for places you
normally wouldn’t be able to get delivery for. Places like Casey’s, the Laughing
Buddha, La Casa Mexicana and more.
Jason: We are also starting to have lots of cool contests on our Facebook page
and on our website. We’ve already given out two $50 gift cards for Wacky Wings
and a $50 gift card for the Townehouse. We have a few really big contests
coming up where one of our customers can win larger prizes. More on that soon!
20SS: HOW HAS THE RESPONSE BEEN SO FAR?
George: So far we’ve been getting a lot of great feedback from both restaurants
and from people using the site. This is a completely brand new way of doing
things; Sudbury has never had a service exactly like this before. People who have
been ordering keep on ordering so that’s always a good sign.
Jason: Yeah, we want as much feedback as possible.
We built this for a
convenience factor so anything we can do to make things easier for both
restaurants and people coming to order food, we’ll do.
For example, we’re
working hard on releasing an iPhone app in the upcoming weeks.
20SS: SO HOW DOES THE SITE WORK? WALK US THROUGH THE
ORDERING PROCESS.
Jason: It works exactly like any other e-commerce experience you’re already used
to. You browse our directory of restaurants and choose what you’d like to order.
Add it to your account and check out using PayPal, credit card or cash on delivery.
That’s pretty much it.
George: Well, first off we keep signing new restaurants every day so we’re going
to have such a great variety of places to choose from. Most people can only think
of a few places, we want to encourage people to try new things. There are so
many amazing places to eat in Sudbury; we were surprised to find out just how
many restaurants are in our city.
George: Once your order is placed the restaurant is notified of your order and
then the rest of the process is the same as always. They make your food and
deliver it to you or you go and pick it up.
Jason: Online shopping is becoming more and more popular; ordering food
online is just an extension of that. It’s nice not to have to call someone, that way
you can confirm your order and there’s less of a chance of errors. There’s a huge
convenience factor as well, once you create an account you can re-order things
you’ve already ordered making it super-fast. But like George mentioned, the
biggest thing is the variety. Currently we have about 20 places signed up and
more than half are already launched. We plan on doubling that by the New Year.
WWW.EXPRESSMENU.COM
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