YumHacker

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Tips from the Pros: How Not to Suck at Valentine’s Day

Sharing a meal is one of the more intimate experiences two people can enjoy together. Food is love. So it’s no surprise that the most romantic day of the year is also one of the busiest days of the year for restaurants.

Dining out for Valentine’s Day might seem as simple as making a reservation, but with so many people clamoring for a romantic table, you could easily end up annoyed and disappointed. So we spoke with people who work in restaurants to get the scoop on how not to suck on Valentine’s Day.

Make your reservation for the beginning or end of the night.

Most diners want reservations between 7-8pm. Making an earlier or later reservation means you will not be there during the most hectic parts of the evening which will most likely result in better service. Earlier is better in my opinion.

Expect to have a cocktail while waiting for your table.

Again, it's a very busy night. Restaurants also tend to overbook due to the high number of VDay no shows and last minute cancellations.

- Akili, General Manager, Drago Centro, Los Angeles

Avoid the Prix Fixe menus.

Most places will run a prix fixe menu to help the kitchen keep up with the high demand. The point of the prix fixe menu is to get people in and out as quickly as possible. What’s being served is probably not the best the restaurant has to offer.

Instead, go some place not stereotypically romantic.

All the fancy places are going to be packed full. Why not go for a new culinary adventure? Korean BBQ may not sound romantic but dining with your love while risking 3rd degree burns will certainly be fun and memorable.

- Jen, Bartender, San Francisco

Skip Valentine’s Day.

If you’re looking for romance, make a reservation for the weekend before. You’ll miss the insanity of the VDay rush and get much better service. If you mention you’re celebrating early, the restaurant might even throw in an extra treat.

If you must go out, try to snag a seat at the bar.

The bar area is often overlooked as a romantic spot in the restaurant but often it’s quieter and more intimate than the main floor. Plus, you’ll probably get more attentive service.

- Jeff, Server, New York

Be nice to the staff.

VDay is chaotic and stressful for everyone. Being super nice when making reservations and when interacting with the host/server/management goes a LONG way.

Expect to be cramped.

VDay is seen as a huge money making day in the restaurant biz and the goal is to capitalize on everyone who feels they need to go out. Most restaurants adjust floor plans to accommodate more guests, thus creating more cramped seating.

- Shannon, Manager, Baltimore

Don't look to your bartender or server to be your wingman.

We have been inundated all day and night with pseudo-romance, ending relationships, beginning relationships and we want the day to be over as much as anyone who wants the date to be over.

Be original.

If you are actually going to celebrate romance on the most unoriginal day of the year, at least be original in the execution.

- Victoria, Bartender, The Escondite, Los Angeles

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I Code to Procrastinate When I Should be Growing My Startup

Since I’ve launched YumHacker I’ve been feeling kind of unproductive. It’s not that I am not getting things accomplished, but now that I am shifting my focus from building YumHacker to growing YumHacker my schedule has radically changed. Between meetings, events and emails I’m not left with many good chunks of quality working time. I’m a maker trying to get things done and I'm no longer on a maker’s schedule*. It feels weird. Even though I haven’t had as much time to work on coding YumHacker, it’s always in the back of my head. I’m constantly thinking of bugs I want to fix and the features I should add. This nagging feeling has led to a lot of “productive procrastination”. Between meetings, when I really shouldn’t be coding, I find myself… you guessed it… coding! I find myself opening up the code to do something, even if it isn’t terribly important in the grand scheme of things. I’m being productive, I tell myself, but since I’m doing a startup, doing anything that isn’t critical path is just productive procrastination. Sometimes productive procrastination can seriously derail your progress towards a goal. For the most part, I’ve been able to keep my productive procrastination in the realm of real issues that need resolving, like fixing two major issues on YumHacker -- a UI bug that would always send you back to San Francisco if you clicked the YumHacker icon, and I also made it quicker to add your favorite restaurants. Me: Yay! I fixed two major issues! Disapproval Turtle:

I’m starting to settle into not being on a maker's schedule. I’m getting better at scheduling appointments at times that leave me with more large chunks of free time. I’ve also started keeping a list of all the things I need to do which I can pull from when I find myself with a few extra minutes. Using my time more efficiently leaves a lot less time for productive procrastination. Still, I can hear the code calling my name. * http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html

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YumHacker: I Built a Social Network for Food and Here's How I Did it

tl;dr: After I finished the 180 Websites project I wanted to build a full scale, dynamic website. I saw a need for more personalized restaurant recommendations and spent the last 80 days making YumHacker. The backend uses Rails as an api and the frontend is powered by Backbone.js. You can check out the code on GitHub.

I’ve always been fascinated by the internet’s ability to facilitate communication. When I set out to make 180 websites in 180 days, my goal was to learn to code so I could take part in creating those communication channels by making interactive websites. Toward the end of the 180 websites project I succeeded in making a few websites where people could collaboratively draw pictures, share photos, or chat.

Making these basic interactive websites felt awesome, but I wanted to do something bigger.  I wanted to build a build a full scale, dynamic website where people have a virtual identity that they can be proud of.  

Many of my friends really enjoy food -- exotic, off the beaten path, authentic, soulful food.  But finding great, new restaurants to try is really hard.  When I head to the internet, I invariably end up trying a place that scores highly on Yelp.  Most of the time the food is, well, meh.  I'm rarely blown away.

For me, most of the awesome new restaurants I discover are recommendations from friends. I created YumHacker to help you to find great restaurants from people you trust, your friends.

There are lots of online tools to help you find new restaurants.  Most food websites are based around the reviews and recommendations of strangers. This is how Yelp operates.  Yelp is pretty amazing because they have all the data: pictures, hours, locations, reviews and star ratings.  Having all of the data is very valuable because it empowers you to make an informed decision. But at the same time, looking at 100 reviews made by strangers requires me to do a lot of work to figure out if the restaurant is a good fit for me.

Foursquare has a really nice balance between tons of data but with a personal touch. They even have the ability to find restaurants near you where your Foursquare friends have checked-in.  If your friends go to a restaurant then the chance of you wanting to go there too goes way up.  Unfortunately, it can be difficult to tell whether your friends love, hate or are indifferent toward a place they’ve checked-in to.

In real life, when someone gives you a recommendation, you get the name of the place and short comment on why they like it.  YumHacker mirrors those real life recommendations online so you can get them any time you want. YumHacker is a place where you can find great restaurants endorsed by people you trust.

YumHacker keeps it simple. Endorse restaurants you like and follow people you trust to see what restaurants they endorse. A helpful map shows you all of the places you're endorsing, and its also possible to have the map display only endorsed restaurants from your friends. Geolocation features make it easy to find new places nearby. Short, 100 character comments put the focus on what matters and leave no room for bloat. You can upload photos, too, if that’s your jam.

After thinking about the structure for YumHacker, I knew I wanted it to be snappy. I consulted with some friends and decided to make YumHacker a one page app using Rails as an API and Backbone on the frontend. On the backend, Rails responds to all initial requests with the javascript assets and a barebones html document so Backbone has somewhere to work its magic. The Rails API then manages all subsequent requests, responding with JSON. For the restaurant search feature, YumHacker taps into the power of the Google Places API to find new restaurant information like price point and hours. For the database, YumHacker uses Postgres with PostGIS. For authentication, YumHacker uses Devise with Omniauth Facebook and Twitter integration.

My first experiences with Backbone were frustrating because Backbone nudges you in the right direction and that wasn’t the direction I was initially headed in. But after I got into the swing of things it was awesome! Having a way to organize and model data made building complex view structures a breeze. If you’re curious, all of the code for YumHacker is publicly available on GitHub so check it out!

This is the first public release of YumHacker and there are still lots of things to do. I’m going to add more advanced filters so you can refine your search by price, category and neighborhood. Coding a mobile optimized front end is also at the top of my priority list. I’m also thinking about adding the ability to make custom lists like ‘My Favorite Burritos’ that you can share. Of course, I’d love to hear any feedback or suggestions for features you’d like to see on YumHacker!