You can say all you want about our hunter-gatherer-forager instincts, but the truth of the matter is that as the day gets shorter, and the nights get colder, we just sometimes want to curl up on the couch under the covers and have our food brought to us, Cleopatra-style.
And that’s where our phones get whipped out, and apps like EatNow come in.
The idea is simple: You select your suburb, pick a restaurant, place your order and wait for your confirmation email and the food to rock up at your door.
With its slick red design, EatNow makes it easy for you to scroll through restaurants near your area – neatly categorised under Delivery and Pickup tabs – and order whatever you’d like. With a smooth and easy experience, this app even picked up the 2013 award for Best App at the Online Retail Industry Awards.
I really like too that some restaurants offer app-specific deals – there are some first-time-order discounts, some that give you free drinks, and even loyalty card programmes, all managed from within the app. I also felt safe in the rating system for restaurants: eateries are rated between 1 to 5 stars by customers through the EatNow website, and you also get to read those reviews before you make your selection. EatNow also works with Paypal, which saves you from further getting off your couch to reach for your wallet if you have your account details handy.
But as with anything, there were still a few kinks to be worked out. The app doesn’t have all the functionality of the website – you can’t change your account details directly from the app, for example – and you have to scroll down from your order page in order to input your details – which I completely missed the first time I tried placing my order. (Pictured above)
There was also a small mixup with the restaurant – turns out that while the order goes through fine, there sometimes is an issue with printing the order docket, which leads to missed orders, and very hungry people. The minimum order limit set by the restaurant doesn’t help either – I’m more likely to get food delivered when I have no one else to feed.
But otherwise, EatNow is easy, convenient, and a great way to pick from a variety of restaurants, all from the comfort of your own couch. The app is also now available on the Google Play Store, which means all of y’all Andriod users can enjoy winter dinners entirely from the comfort of your own couch too!