Quick Fix: Dine Out Radar

We’re always on the lookout for new tools that help make our busy young professional lives a bit easier to manage. We recently stumbled upon one that aims to do just that and is guaranteed to please the foodie aficionados out there.

With this in mind and the recent launch of Dine Out Vancouver, it’s easy to feel somewhat overwhelmed when faced with the staggering list of 240 participating restaurants. Enter Dine Out Radar.

One of our Vancouver-based YP readers, Godfrey Chan, recently took it upon himself to create the very first Dine Out-centred radar in order to help fellow foodie fans have a more streamlined, easy approach to the promotion on now.

Like many young professionals out there, Godfrey spent the better part of last week languishing over work, with the added task of sourcing and booking Dine Out spots shuffled to the back of his mind. When realization hit that he needed to make his reservations, he found that sifting through 27 or so pages of listings to be too much of an ordeal. Instead of calling it quits, though, this 25-year-old SFU Computer Science graduate opted to design a useful application (over the weekend!). 

With a little programming magic (and we imagine plenty of coffee), Dine Out Radar was born. The lowdown: Dine Out Radar is meant to be a user-friendly site that spotlights popular restaurant destinations around town based on respective Foursquare reviews and check-ins. Though not yet mobile (Chan aims to have those kinks worked out for the weekend), this Radar instantly maps out dining destinations which have received the highest scores from reviewers, provides at-a-glance menu information, location details and a convenient a pop-up screen to reserve.

Our take: we think it’s pretty neat and definitely worth noting.