Eating; it's something that the vast majority of us all love to do. While I can't speak for everyone, I sure know that I do love eating, too; I might not have a favorite cuisine, but I do have a few favorite dishes. Can't go wrong with some sushi or a nice burrito bowl, if that's how you want to get to my heart. While eating at the same few places might be nice and all, there's a new way to find local restaurants, and that's through a platform called Restaurants.Love.
What's there to know?
Launched by BentoBox, Restaurants.Love is basically an online directory that's also interactive that helps those that are perpetually hungry like myself find tons of local grub spots to support by ordering directly from the restaurant's website. What this means for you is that you won't have to pay a booking fee, like what you'd have to do with UberEats. Sometimes, the booking fees are just as much as the food itself, which doesn't make it worth it. While ordering directly from the restaurant will help you save money, you'd also be building a direct relationship with the restaurant that'll still be in tact once this pandemic finally dies down.
Co-Founder and CEO of BentoBox has stated that "restaurants are the pillars of our communities; as diners, we want to do all we can to support them with online orders, but third-party delivery services often take too much of a cut to make those orders profitable for restaurants. We're proud to launch Restaurants.Love today, so that diners can feel good about their pickup and delivery orders at a time where restaurants need their support."
According to the press release, participating restaurants include neighborhood staples, such as Cheesetique in Alexandria, Va., Mucci’s Italian in St. Paul, Minn., and Union Square Hospitality Group in New York City. Many Restaurants.Love locations also offer a simple checkbox that gives diners the ability to contribute $1.99 to a COVID Relief Fund for the restaurant at checkout. This reminds me of the roundup donation feature that Seamless has, but we're not here to talk about them.
Hopefully you're in the mood to eat while saving money on booking fees, and that's why I'd recommend you start looking at Restaurants.Love. It's never too late or too early to eat, but it's the fact that you're eating that counts. The last thing that you want to do is starve yourself (which is something that I'm guilty of), so it's better to get some food into your system sooner instead of later, but who am I to dictate what you do with your life?