nowfound

Alternatives

Products that do what Our fight against terrible restaurant websites does

Today we've launched happytables ( http://www.happytables.com ), a squarespace / wordpress.com for restaurants. I had posted on HN before about a previous iteration we performed ( http://bit.ly/sn0FWc ), and am really satisfied how far we've gotten with it all. The entire solution is built on top of WordPress, it's allowed us to quickly prototype and build various components. It'll be interesting to see if other solutions pop-up for unrelated niche markets using WordPress too (i.e. real estate, sports clubs, etc.). Would love to hear your feedback on our concept and would gladly answer any…

  1. 1IM

    I had this idea rolling around in my head for the last couple of years, and I finally decided to build the damned thing just to get idea relief. The backend is a typical LAMP stack with the Symfony2 framework backing the P. Varnish sits in front of all the Chef managed Linode boxes. The site will work without Javascript (up until the checkout), and the style degrades really nicely depending on your viewport (try it out by resizing your browser). I'm open to all comments and critiques, so let me hear them. And if you are into graphic t-shirts, here is a code for a Hacker News 20% discount:…

    2012 · getnifty.com

  2. 2IM

    Hi hn! It has always annoyed me that recipe websites are so cluttered and have so much (in my opinion) useless fluff, so I made a little website to solve that problem! One good thing about SEO for once is that Google has pretty much forced the internet to adopt JSON-LD for recipes so many recipes are directly extractable and for others I have several fall back parsers including an indieweb parser :) If you do find a website that is broken feel free to click the flag button or share it as I would love to fix any edge cases

    Apr 2026 · tangled.org

  3. 3LF

    If you guys are interested in high-quality food products please let me know what you think of my website prototype. 1)Do you understand immediately what the site is about? 2)Is it easy enough to understand how it works? 3)If ready to roll in your neighborhood would you be interested in subscribing to a service like this? I am in the process of getting a closed-beta off the ground in Brooklyn and I am really interested in all kinds of feedback about the idea, the design, UX. Thanks. http://www.the-local-kitchen.com

    2012

  4. 4CA

    This is my MVP. It's not quite really ready to unleash, but what the heck. http://cilantrosites.com SHORT PITCH: About.me for restaurants LONGER PITCH: Single-page websites for restaurants that don't suck. Instant setup. Hours, map, menu, contact/social, email list, mobile version. No Flash. No PDFs. KNOWN ISSUES: (a) can add menu items but not edit/del. (b) additional settings (mainly domain mapping) are turned off (c) if you're editing colors, make sure to scroll to the top of the page, (d) many others FEEDBACK WELCOME: I have tough skin. Also, I know much of the design is average. I have…

    2011

  5. 5OS

    We built this as a bit of fun but it's been getting some great responses on Twitter

    2012 · workfu.com

  6. 6IW

    Hey HN! I built this over the weekend. It is basically an extremely rudimentary crowd sourced recommendation system for anything in any city. I know that I could easily look this information up on Yelp but I thought it might be nicer to simply look up something like "the best steak in new york" and get that information. The database is almost empty but if you look up the "best coffee in ann arbor" you'll get a result which I seeded. Go ahead and contribute what you can. Ill be adding CAPTCHAs soon to prevent spammers. Here is the link: http://www.krowd.me

    2011

  7. 7SB

    With my friends we wanted to have a nice friendly competition (no money involved) about the football worldcup by predicting the results. I though this might interest other groups of friends so I coded a website just for that in 3 days. Nothing ground breaking but I like the suscription system "Doodle" style with just links, no personal infos... Tell me what you think !

    2014 · nospronos.com

  8. 8C

    http://cheergram.com Hey there everyone. I have been reading HN a bit here sans there but haven't ever submitted/commented before. (I am a stay at home mom) Anyway I had this idea a while back and had my husband help me build it. I tried to do most of the designs, though some are stock vectors. Anyway I'd love your feedback on anything that will help this business grow. Thanks so much.

    2012

  9. 9S

    We’re about to start promoting our coming soon landing pages and wanted to get some feedback from the HN community first. http://soupnextdoor.com - Marketplace for dinner parties We’re running a competition about where our launch will be. This will give us something to promote other than the fact that we’re coming soon and hopefully get some conversation started. We’re looking for feedback across the board. UI, color scheme, browser compatibility issues, problems with our idea, marketing ideas, issues with how we’ve worded things, etc We’ve left Django in debug mode for the time being so if…

    2011

  10. 10IS

    A few years ago I wrote a crawler to fetch all NYC menus. I wanted to prove that many specific dishes can't be found in NYC restaurants. After more than two years that I had forgotten about the project I decided to clean it up, deal with the css, and put it online. The number of interesting dishes that can be found is actually quite surprising. The backend is written using nodejs without any framework (no db, just a bunch of in memory DS) and vanilla js/html/css for the frontend.

    2022 · c.bitlet.org

  11. 11RO

    Before I tell you what we're trying to do, please take a look and see if you can figure it out for yourself -- after all, that's what our public website is for isn't it? http://salesathand.com/ (Why isn't this becoming a link?) Okay, back? If you didn't get it from our website we are doing mobile point of sale and electronic menus for restaurants, cafes, vendors, and retailers. We have the prototype done and we have some initial customers that are really interested in what we're doing but we want to try to bring more people on board and generate that elusive buzz with our public website. We…

    2010

  12. 12IB

    I've been frustrated by so many blogging platforms. Last I used Ghost. I thought it was expensive and I hated that www I had to prefix on custom domain. So, I built https://lykhari.com just for myself and then opened for public. If you want something simple do try. It became profitable and hence self sustaining!

    2025 · lykhari.com

  13. 137T

    I am happy to announce the updated release of my web app, 7courses. http://7courses.com/ 7courses makes it ridiculously easy to jot down and manage your collection of recipes. As someone who cooks, I often find recipes online or in cookbooks, but have no way to organize them. I have been looking for a digital "recipe box". After plenty of searching I just made my own. 7courses was built around the idea that you should be able to choose how you want to organize your recipes, and doing so should be easy and quick. The UI is responsive and intuitive, with a no frills design. Just jump right in…

    2011

  14. 14PA

    Hello! For the last year I've been working on a side project, a booking management system. Among others, it allows anyone who owns a business that accepts bookings to manage them, to communicate with customers, to easily create a personalized website or to embed a calendar widget on any existing website. Link: https://www.planorio.com There is still a long way to go, but I feel that now it is ready for some very direct feedback. :) It mainly consists of an Angular frontend, a backend written in Node.js and some small tools written in PHP and Kotlin. I also created a hybrid mobile…

    2019

  15. 15PR

    www.schmeebs.com I built this site in two days. I tried to make it a fusion of Twitter + Digg in that people will be able to follow certain "domains" of news then be able to see popular stuff from there. Its as real time as it can be at this point. Would welcome any thoughts on it!

    2010

  16. 16FO

    So I've been working away at Cilantro in my free time (see http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2927607) ... and in working with local restaurants, I've learned a lot about the coupon and daily deal space. I wanted to experiment with a subscription commerce model for restaurants. I just launched it today for my local area (San Luis Obispo): http://www.eat05.com Think of it as "Birchbox for Restaurants" - Consumers pay $9 per month - They get six to eight 2-for-1 restaurant vouchers - $4 of the purchase goes to a local food charity (SLO Food Bank so far) - It's free for restaurants to…

    2011

  17. 17AA

    Wanted to get everyone's feedback on the web app my startup has been working on for the past few months. (didn't want to tweak it anymore before getting feedback from viewers who weren't my friends/family). http://www.foodia.com Would definitely love feedback on the UX (which needs work) and whether this is something you'd use before shopping/deciding what to buy. I'd also love to hear what food problems (if any) you all feel need solving. Thanks.

    2011

  18. 187R

    Awhile back I launched http://7courses.com on here to get some preliminary feedback. The reception was positive, but there were a few issues that had to be addressed. Mainly, the font, and the lack of a normal user system (limited to openID logins). This has been changed, along with a whole ton of other features which may or may not be immediately apparent. Either way, I think this project has come a long way, and hope you can find some use from it. http://7courses.com http://twitter.com/7courses 7courses is a central place where you can store and collect all your recipes. Say goodbye to…

    2011

  19. 19IM

    Hey Hacker News, I'm the maker of Kopage, a free & self-hosted Website Builder. While working on new, cool features (AI, of course), it would be great to hear some HN feedback :) Thanks, Simon

    2024 · kopage.com

  20. 20IJ

    Link: http://bupipedream.com/ -OR- http://bupd.me/ After a long winter break of coding and my first all-nighter in college, I've finally completed (sort-of) a redesign of my college newspaper's website! It is now powered by WordPress and features a responsive design. Please let me know if you have any comments or suggestions!

    2012

  21. 21AF

    My partner and I (ex-Googlers) plan our trips around food as a way to connect with local culture. Before every trip, we'd spend hours digging through Reddit threads and local blogs, filtering out sponsored noise to find places worth eating. So we built CuriousSpoon, a food guide we could actually trust. *Why ratings fail* - 51% of negative reviews cite service, only 31% cite food [1] - Google removed 170M fake reviews in 2023; Harvard found 16% are suspicious [2] *What we built instead* An engine that does what a local food nerd does: reads city newspapers, local critics, subreddits, chef…

    Dec 2025 · curiousspoon.app

  22. 22IB

    Hi HN! My name is Yossi, and I'm a solo indie maker. SEO tools are super pricey and free tools often fall short, leaving most users to costly subscription-based tools. So, I built SEO Stuff, a keyword tool that uses a credit-based system for builders like me who use SEO more sporadically. Have a great day!

    2024 · seo-stuff.com

  23. 23MH

    Hi Hn, A buddy and I worked on this prototype to see if we could design a system that helps people think creatively. I'd love your feedback, tips and pointers - and yes, I know it's a bit ugly (much css work to be done). Check it out at beta.monsterlumen.com and let us know what you think!

    2013

  24. 24BC

    I built https://www.Bonvago.com in my spare time as a friendlier alternative to other hotel booking engines. Slow dev server, no VC cash, no hype—just me + caffeine, so thanks for your patience. Every “painfully’ slow search helps improve speed. What it does: - Unlocks hidden rates (AAA, Costco, double points, etc.) - Summarizes hotel reviews using AI so you don’t have to doomscroll. - Gives you BONV points (aka tokens you can spend on hotel bookings). - Travel agents get 10% commissions (most OTAs give you like... 6%) Up Next (maybe): Flights, rental cars, tours, cruises—and an AI…

    2025

Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Refine with a description →