Ask HN: Did you implement a lunch picking app at your startup?

#1

Post by hrayr » Thu, May 28, 2015, 5:55 AM UTC

When a group of developers start meeting regularly for lunch, it's almost inevitable for them to create an app -- within days -- to answer a real question: What the heck should we eat today?

This happened to me on more than one occasion. Here's an old one from where I worked at long time ago: http://www.venarc.com/lunch/

I'm curious to see what other startups/groups have come up with. List your startup and a link to the lunch picker (if it's public).

Re: Ask HN: Did you implement a lunch picking app at your startup?

#2

Post by hrayr » Thu, May 28, 2015, 5:59 AM UTC

I'll get the ball rolling. Here's Venarc's lunch picker that's probably 7-8 years old. http://www.venarc.com/lunch/

Re: Ask HN: Did you implement a lunch picking app at your startup?

#3

Post by DigitalSea » Thu, May 28, 2015, 6:06 AM UTC

The startup I contracted for didn't have an app. We would just take turns picking a place for everyone to eat at. One day I would pick a place, someone else would take us through some suspicious alley ways to a hidden Mexican place, etc.

Re: Ask HN: Did you implement a lunch picking app at your startup?

#4

Post by 100k » Thu, May 28, 2015, 6:16 AM UTC

We've used this one: http://wtfsigte.com/

Crude but effective.

Re: Ask HN: Did you implement a lunch picking app at your startup?

#5

Post by pawangupta11 » Thu, May 28, 2015, 6:18 AM UTC

We experimented with a channel #Lunch on Slack, unfortunately it became a channel to share /giphy food

Re: Ask HN: Did you implement a lunch picking app at your startup?

#6

Post by jonbishop » Thu, May 28, 2015, 6:20 AM UTC

We have a bot in Slack that randomly picks places from a list of nearby restaurants.

Re: Ask HN: Did you implement a lunch picking app at your startup?

#7

Post by edmack » Thu, May 28, 2015, 6:22 AM UTC

pawangupta11 wrote: post #5

We experimented with a channel #Lunch on Slack, unfortunately it became a channel to share /giphy food

/giphy food is my FAVORITE slack usage!

Re: Ask HN: Did you implement a lunch picking app at your startup?

#8

Post by ohmyiv » Thu, May 28, 2015, 6:23 AM UTC

My last job (not a startup) used wheelof:

http://wheelof.com/lunch/

Pretty cool. I've also used it in different cities.

Re: Ask HN: Did you implement a lunch picking app at your startup?

#9

Post by simonw » Thu, May 28, 2015, 6:26 AM UTC

When I worked at Yahoo UK back in 2006ish someone wrote an app to do this.

Re: Ask HN: Did you implement a lunch picking app at your startup?

#10

Post by crawdog » Thu, May 28, 2015, 6:28 AM UTC

Ah yes... The lunch gadget. At Plumtree Software it actually helped us sell a portal deal to Thomas Weisel Partners in the early 2000's. Good old ASP/VBScript.