In response to the COVID-19 pandemic and continued statewide “Stay Home, State Safe” order, the City of Battle Creek’s Small Business Development Office has launched its own online and mobile food-ordering marketplace.
EatsBC.com is a dynamic prepared food directory for the community. Check out the site to see the ever-expanding list of participating restaurants.
“It was clear from the start that this was going to be a great disruptor to traditional business practices of restaurants,” said John Hart, city development director. “We knew that many of our prepared food operators were not set up for delivery or online sales. We also understood that the fees charged by alternative platforms were costly, and raised prices/cost to the customer and businesses significantly.
“We quickly assembled a local team of IT and software development professionals to see if we could create a community platform to advance the online capabilities and exposure of our local businesses.”
Food service establishments can register with EatsBC, create an account, log in, enter their menu, and specify if they are dine-in, pick-up, and/or delivery.
The site and app can take a customer’s order and accept payment, then send the order to the restaurant.
Six local restaurants that are still open for carryout and delivery tested the site last week. Businesses do not pay to join EatsBC; they do pay a 3.1 percent payment processing fee on transactions.
“It’s a great application to support the food community in the Battle Creek area during these times,” said Javier Fortoso, owner of Torti Taco, one of the EatsBC restaurants. “I hope that many restaurants will decide to join.”
There is no direct cost to the business to utilize the site/app other than on the sales that are made and those are limited to a transaction cost at 3.1% and 6% sales tax.
“EatsBC is an affordable community platform,” Hart said. “We believe that this is the perfect time to launch this directory; we need to be bold and adapt to the new normal.”
The city’s SBD team developed EatsBC with the help of corePHP, and Jon Galbreath of Jonic IT Consulting.