Introducing the Menu Builder

Today LocalOn rolls out a long-requested feature: the customizable menu widget. Restaurant and Food Service users can finally add, remove, and edit menu categories to fit the unique mix of foods they offer.

What’s changed? First and foremost, it’s pretty. Users’ dishes look appetizing, and so should their menus! The new menu builder frees users’ imaginations to arrange their page without limits.  (And we look forward to seeing what you come up with!)  Second, users can divide their offerings into small, medium, large, or any size they care to offer – and price each size accordingly. Finally, the new menu builder ends the tyranny of the monotonous appetizer, entree, dessert menu. Want to offer a selection of specials this week? Users can now log in, add specials, and be done in minutes. Special selection of sushi? How about a wine menu? LocalOn menus are now fast, adaptable and attractive.

How does this tie in to other LocalOn services? Our mission to create communities around local commerce can’t happen if nobody knows what’s available in their community. The new menu builder plugs directly into our location-sensitive, secret sauce SSEO. Every additional menu item added to our database gives our users higher search engine placement to people in their area.

Enough hype- time for a story. We live in South San Francisco, and we love a bakery called Raymond’s. Finding it was a matter of luck- if we hadn’t gotten lost a few months ago, we never would have experienced the ecstasy of Raymond’s apple strudel.

Being geeks, of course we had immediately scoured the web when we moved in. The nearest apple strudels had appeared to be forty minutes north, in San Francisco proper. We’ve got the ultimate search tool at our fingertips, so why did we have to get lost to find Raymond’s?

We’re building LocalOn to connect local businesses more deeply to their local community. We think there are hundreds of thousands of places like Raymond’s out there, hidden in plain sight in your town.