Local Food Deals

Inspiration

We were inspired by a common problem: restaurants often have food that could still be enjoyed but may go unsold, while customers are looking for affordable meals. We wanted to create a solution that connects restaurants with customers, helps people discover nearby places to eat, and makes it easier to find food deals.

What It Does

Our project, Local Food Deals, has two main parts: a customer-facing food map and a merchant dashboard.

The customer food map uses Google Maps to help users discover restaurants. Users can view restaurant photos directly on the map, search for restaurants, get directions, and explore restaurants based on different search criteria.

The merchant dashboard is designed to let restaurant owners manage their restaurant information, menu items, and leftover food deals. Our goal is to help merchants promote unsold food at discounted prices while giving customers more affordable dining options.

How We Built It

We built the front end using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Google Maps provides the map experience, including restaurant locations, photos, search, and directions.

We also set up Supabase as our backend database. We designed tables for restaurants, menu items, and leftover deals, and tested email-link authentication. This gives us a foundation for connecting restaurant information and food deals between the merchant dashboard and the customer map.

Challenges We Faced

One of our biggest challenges was connecting the front end to the database. Creating the database tables was only the first step; we also needed to make sure the data was saved correctly and could be retrieved by the right part of the application.

During testing, we found that restaurant information could appear to save in the dashboard without appearing in the Supabase database. This taught us the importance of checking the entire data flow instead of assuming that a successful action in the interface means the backend is working.

We also had to think about how to make the map useful and easy to navigate, while keeping the merchant dashboard simple enough for restaurant owners to use.

What We Learned

Through this project, we gained experience with front-end development, map integration, database design, authentication, and debugging. We learned how important it is to test individual features as well as the connections between them.

Most importantly, we learned that building a useful product involves more than creating an attractive interface. The data, user experience, and backend all need to work together.

What's Next

Our next steps are to finish verifying the Supabase data flow, connect published restaurant information and active deals to the customer map, strengthen database security, and test the complete experience from both the customer and merchant perspectives.

We hope Local Food Deals can make affordable food easier to discover, help restaurants get more value from unsold food, and reduce avoidable food waste.