MyToGo.Place says waiting in line is so 1995. The working-towards-launch platform is trying to not only help diners skip the line when ordering from local restaurants, but also help independent eateries join the world of online ordering.
For Founder Aaron Blevins, lunch options would often include Jimmy John’s delivery or order ahead Chipotle. He was taking advantage of online ordering technology to skip the lunchtime line.
“The premise behind MyToGo.Place was really inspired from that,” Blevins says. “Chains, they can afford to create something like that.” Smaller, independent restaurants normally don’t have the capacity or the funds to install complex online ordering systems.
MyToGo.Place looks to fill the gap.
“It’s an online marketplace that any restaurant can come on and create their store,” Blevins says. “They get a profile page. They can add as many listings for as many menu items as they want.”
Blevins describes it as an Etsy for food. MyToGo.Places aims to be a simplistic marketplace with a low barrier to entry to make it accessible. The system itself is straight-forward – track an order through its progression, receive customer payments through PayPal.
“Another big advantage for restaurants is they aren’t having to spend thousands of dollar to sign up,” Blevins says. As is typical in the online food ordering industry, MyToGo.Place will instead take a small percentage of each transaction.
The platform looks to be as easy and advantageous for customers as it is for businesses. Eventually, user-driven data will round out MyToGo.Place with a Yelp-like functionality, helping customers find the best of what they’re craving. Other filters will also make searching a snap.
Beside obvious advantages like skipping the line or being able to order food at a time when it’s inconvenient to make a phone call, “We are working on  some type of partnership,” Blevins says. “I would love to be able to do a one-for-one strategy with this.” Ideally, for every meal a customer orders, a meal would be donated to a local foodbank.
With the strategy, MyToGo.Place enters the social entrepreneurship space. It’s a business strategy that’s been exponentially gaining steam, and is what helps set the platform apart from other food ordering and delivery services.
MyToGo.Place is targeting local restaurants and food trucks and is almost ready to approach eateris for a test-run. It’s using Columbus as a test city, “Like it is so well with all these other things,” Blevins says. With a solid launch here, scalability is potentially next.
For updates visit mytogo.place.
