Platform Encourages Hoosiers to ‘EatHere’
An Indianapolis-based company that connects foodies with local restaurants is hoping to take its social platform to a national level. EatHere is a one-stop social discovery platform for food and restaurants that provides instant recommendations for diners in Indy.
Right now, it offers recommendations on about 100 restaurants but is continuing to grow.
In an interview on Inside INdiana Business with Gerry Dick, co-founder Bradley Houser explained how it all began.
“We wanted to create a one-stop social discovery marketplace for food and restaurants. We want to make it more convenient for people,” said Houser. “We wanted to be able to connect locals of the restaurants that they love, but we want to just make it really easy for people to discover.”
The idea came about in 2015 as Houser and co-founder Austin Burris set out to find a better way to help people share personal, local food experiences online.
It started as a social media tool, evolved into a website and now offers a text function, sending recommendations directly to users’ phones.
“We get tons of user feedback, tons of restaurant and business feedback on how people are directly coming in from our suggestions to the restaurant,” said Houser. “With the pandemic and locals trying to reconnect and restaurants trying to reconnect with locals, this is a perfect time for our business.”
The platform does not only offer food recommendations. The website is an aggregator of food-focused stories, such as eating trends, restaurant openings and closings, and videos.
Houser says the company is looking to expand beyond central Indiana.
“Our next goal is to raise a seed (funding). We want to take our technology to the national level and really get eat here in the hands of the communities across the country,” said Houser.