Hollar

Created Store Front for Small Business to Accept Online Orders (we've digitized their menu and allow them to accept orders online)

Inspiration

The COVID-19 pandemic has hit restaurants hard. While many sit-down restaurants have moved to online-delivery options such as uber eats or grubhub, these services charge service fees, and furthermore aren’t typically used by restaurants and coffee shops selling less expensive drinks / baked goods (< $10 orders). There needs to be an easy way for restaurants to publish their menu online without needing to resort to costly website building services (which can be anywhere from $30-$300/month).

Social Good Aspect

Hollar is a platform which equips small businesses and restaurants with the tools to adapt in a world where transactions increasingly occur online (a change only expedited by the COVID-19 pandemic). Furthermore, contrary to companies like Uber Eats (which take a ~30% cut from each order), Hollar.app is entirely free for restaurants to use, giving them control over their online ordering and offers similar functionality (minus delivery, all orders are pickup)

What it does

Hollar allows restaurant owners to set up an online ordering platform in minutes. With an easy to use menu-creator, admin portal to view trends and revenue, kiosk to see incoming orders, and customer facing menu website, Hollar is a one stop shop for restaurants to get online in an increasingly digitized world.

In other words, Hollar is a static site generator for restaurants to get their menu online, without needing to resort to website builders or outsource developers. We make it simple to set up an online ordering platform, with no hidden fees or pre-charges.

How we built it

We built our front end with next.js, react, and javascript. Our backend was entirely hosted on Google Cloud, using Cloud Firestore, and Cloud Functions to manage routes. We hosted our next.js website on Vercel, linking it to our custom domain name.

Challenges we ran into

For ⅔ of our members it was the first time using next.js & cloud functions, so there definitely was a little bit of a learning curve there.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We’re really proud of the functionality offered by our menu-creation page for small restaurant owners as well as the fact that we implemented an online ordering platform where the customer can order & checkout and the business owner can stay updated with notifications of recent orders showing up on the in-store kiosk section of the website.

What we learned

We improved our UI design skills (specifically focusing on a minimalistic design, as well as incorporating helpful features for the user such as dark theme)