Windsor’s Sirved Expands Menu-Based Food App

Windor-based Sirved is taking its hyperlocal menu-searching app nationwide.

Co-founders Kyle Brown and Jonathan Leslie initially launched Sirved in Windsor as a basic online ordering platform, positioning the company against existing smartphone apps like Skip the Dishes and JustEat.

Their initial plan was to pivot Sirved into sports venues, but Brown said they switched gears when they saw the opportunity in combining menu discovery and online ordering.

“It’s a crowded market and we know that… But online ordering is a benchmark in take out. Every single platform offers that. What makes us different from Yelp or other apps is our menu-based search engine. It may seem like just another food app, but we’re indexing Kosher, vegetarian, vegan and gluten free options. The competition doesn’t necessarily do that.”

Brown describes Sirved as an all-in-one food platform that combines exploratory functions with ordering. Sirved allows users to search for a specific dish and find restaurants that have the item on their menu. They then have the option to go to the actual restaurant location to eat in-person, call to place an order for takeout, or order from the restaurant directly from the Sirved mobile platform.

“We’ve indexed every single restaurant in Canada. If they have a presence online, even if that presence is only on Facebook, we have their menu in our app,” said Brown. “Google doesn’t have all of them. Yelp doesn’t have all of them. I’d say we have 99 per cent of the restaurants in this country.”

Users can filter relevant matches by distance and find full menus, restaurant directions, location hours, a phone number and their website, “without flipping pages,” said Brown.

For Leslie, he’s seen validation in how helpful the app has been for his own nut allery.

“I’ve had trouble finding restaurants that I feel comfortable eating at, and it’s hard for restaurants to be fully nut free. But I can find a dish without nuts and search based on my allergy. That’s where I saw the power in the search engine,” he said.

Apart from menu discovery, restaurants can tap into Sirved’s food ordering functions. Brown said competitors like Uber Eats and Skip the Dishes charge anywhere between 15 to 35 per cent per transaction, something he said is hard for smaller restaurants to keep up with.

Restaurants using Sirved pay a flat fee of $69 per month for unlimited online transactions. The platform also powers back end real-time analytics. Restaurant owners can pull insights for the data, like the most searched for items within a 10 kilometre area. So far, 30 restaurants in Windsor have signed up for online ordering, but Brown hopes to attract more restaurants as its userbase grows.

Sirved is now available across Canada and Brown said he hopes restaurants that aren’t listed on Sirved will reach out to claim their spot. The app has also expanded to three states so far, Windsor-neighbouring Michigan, Colorado, and Washington. Brown called the U.S. a test ground for the company, but their overall plan is to launch in North America.