“Restaurants are great places to meet people,” says Dan Epstein, co-owner with his brother of Eppie’s on the Downtown Mall. In his case, getting to know frequent customer Brian Williford from behind Eppie’s ordering line has resulted in a new business partnership: a company called orderTopia, which is developing technology that will enable restaurant lovers to order food from their favorite places online and through their iPhones and Smartphones. Williford, a technology entrepreneur, says he started pestering Epstein a few months ago to let him build an iPhone ordering application for Eppie’s.
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Brian Williford, John Feminella and Dan Epstein (from left), figure if they can make an app work for remote ordering from a choose-your-sides mecca like Eppie’s, they can do it for any restaurant. |
“I told him it couldn’t work,” says Epstein, who explains that Eppie’s relatively low-tech point of sale system and complicated menu of interchangeable side dishes and various combinations make online and mobile ordering more than a logistical nightmare.
Epstein speculates that early mobile-ordering adopters such as Chipotle likely had to spend thousands of dollars to build their own iPhone ordering applications.
Rather than be defeated by cost and complexity, and thanks in part to funding from another loyal Eppie’s customer, Williford and Epstein have forged ahead with a business plan to make the new mobile world work not just for Eppie’s but for restaurants here, there and everywhere for a relatively inexpensive subscription of $100 a month (for their own branded iPhone app) or $75 a month (for mobile ordering through orderTopia’s own application). The technology will also give restaurants an interface with social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
“If we can make it work for Eppie’s, then we can make it work for just about anyone,” says Epstein, though he adds that mobile and remote ordering works best for casual-fine dining restaurants.
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Dan Epstein explains orderTopia. |
The beta testing site for orderTopia’s technology is Elevation Burger—a small organic burger franchise with several stores in Northern Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C. Both remote and mobile ordering will be available there around mid-November. After that, the plan is to offer online ordering for Eppie’s by November 1 and iPhone ordering by 2010. Epstein says he’s already in discussions with potential clients Will Richey of Revolutionary Soup and John Spagnolo and Andrew Vaughn of Rise PizzaWorks—the new made-to-order, pizza by the slice shop scheduled to open soon at Barracks Road.
Kluge goes bigger; Al Hamraa goes smaller
Another sign that the downward-trending line graph of economic despair might be heading toward the light (or just heading south more slowly or however the talking finance heads try to optimistically describe it), the kitchen at the Kluge Estate Farm Shop, which ceased serving full meals in February, has reopened with an extended menu of freshly prepared meals on weekends only. Friday, Saturday and Sunday, from 11am-4pm, the Farm Shop will again offer such dishes as quiches, crab cakes, curried chicken salad and homemade cookies.
“After scaling back the Kluge Estate Farm Shop foods to cheese, baguettes and cookies, our customers begged for the return of the old favorites,” says Kluge Estate spokesperson Kristen Moses Murray.
Al Hamraa, the authentic Morrocan restaurant at the IX building from Al Dente owner Karim Sellam has combined its late-night menu and dinner menu and is now serving “Morrish tapas.” Restaurantarama sampled the new style last week and stuffed ourselves on kefta briwat (seasoned ground beef pastry), boustaila (sweet and savory chicken pastry with almonds and eggs) and foul (fava beans, cumin, and olive oil). We’re going back for the lsan tair (Moroccan orzo pasta with goat meat), belly dancing and absinthe.