SmallBizEatz

SmallBizEatz

Our Purpose

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted so many different aspects of life and all major industries, but one of the most negatively impacted sectors is the restaurant and food service industry. It is the smaller food businesses and independent restaurants that continue to face the brunt of our economic crisis. Larger chain restaurants are simply more equipped to handle the coronavirus shutdowns as smaller businesses scramble for financial support from the government and customers. Spreading your dollar to these small businesses, rather than big chains, is crucial to keeping the restaurants open so the owners and their employers can continue to make ends meet despite the incredible financial stress created by COVID-19 restrictions (Q2). SmallBizEatz aims to address the issue of smaller businesses suffering financially by offering a search query that filters out independent restaurants based on your location.

Our Action

Through the use of our site's search bar, users help restaurants in their localities by directly ordering food from the small food businesses and restaurants nearby (Q3). While satisfying their appetite by buying from the restaurants featured on our site, users in turn help their local restaurants and small food businesses stay running. As more and more smaller restaurants are forced to close due to COVID-19 restrictions taking a toll on owners economically, it is local communities that have the power to help their neighbors stay afloat. By putting money in the hands of smaller food businesses and their owners and limiting purchases from chain-restaurants, SmallBizEatz' users help support a sector of the small business community that is hurting financially especially now.

Reflection

None of our team members have attended a hackathon before, so it was both new and exciting to work in this fastpaced collaborative setting. Because we all have experience in different fields, we were simultaneously learning and building with technologies we've never worked with before. One software we had difficulty incorporating was the Google Places API, which allowed us to customize maps and query the small business details for our website (Q5). Although this learning curve was steep, we were all able to contribute our strengths (i.e. design vs backend vs research) and built something that we are truly proud of. There were various points throughout these 24 hours when we doubted ourselves -- if our goals were too unrealistic or if it would be better to give up, but through these intense hours of designing, building, debugging, we've not only furthered our technical skills but have also grown more confident to dive deep and create fearlessly (Q6).

Next Steps

We've only filtered local restaurants from chain restaurants in our current website, but we are looking to expand beyond the food industry to include grocery stores, clothing boutiques, barber shops, and more. These establishments are the heart and soul of our communities, so we want to encourage shopping small as much as possible (Q8).