Sexbyfood provides a web-based reservations book for restaurateurs to keep reservations and contact information together and present open tables to customers across a network of Associate websites. Developers can incorporate Sexbyfood data into websites and applications. Sexbyfood thrives on innovation, simplicity, integrity and tenacity.
An Idea By Any Other Name?
Sexbyfood is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. A celebration of humanity and humor. A mirror. A challenge. A distinction between the over 30s, the under 30s and the truly young at heart. A question. Rock 'n Roll? Wikipedia? Free speech? A Jaguar in the fields of Burgundy? Sexbyfood? Yes, our name is like the equator. Everyone seems either to the north or to the south of it. And it gets hot. We get raised eyebrows, averted eyes and head shakes most of the time. Sometimes, the kind of smile a school boy would have when the girl from the front row asks to sit next to him on the bench. Mostly there are gasps of, "What? You're from WHERE?" We smiled when people said:
"Have you watched Nigella Lawson on TV? Well Sexbyfood is like Nigella Lawson making simple bread and butter." "I guess that's the story of every date." "I must admit I'd feel a little less sophisticated associating my bookings with sex." "Not all food is that good you know." "Gee, I don't know my ID number but that I'll remember." "Dear Lord. Are you guys like the devil and the angel in one?" "Your name is quite a problem." "Like Nyotaimori - body sushi - or chocolate body paint?" "Restaurant Reservations - apparently. I just like the name." "Well, if you're calling from a company with a name like that, I'm going to need your full name please." "You guys need to grow up." "So, do you get a kick out of saying 'sex' over the phone?" "Sexbyfood? What does that mean?" "You guys sure found a way around the generic combinations of 'booking','table' or 'find' that anyone sensible would use." "Only a man could have come up with that one." "Genius!"
A Brief History
2005:
March:
Friday 11. Joran Greef discusses an idea for a restaurant guide with his father Dirk.
September:
Programming starts. Joran, a final-year accounting student at the University of Cape Town, skips class for the 2nd semester.
Close to launching, Sexbyfood is without an Internet connection. A deal is made with the University of Cape Town Smuts Hall residence warden for use of an empty dorm room Internet connection, and a desktop and monitor are hauled in and out for each session. Sexbyfood launches as a restaurant guide to "connect people who love to eat out, with people who love to cook".
2006
January:
"South Africa's Guide To Eating Out" is live and available in English, French and sometimes German with the help of two professional translators and one visual tour photographer. Sexbyfood starts to earn Google pagerank.
January:
Tuesday 3 at 10:33. Sexbyfood is incorporated for the purpose of "advertising of restaurants".
June:
Sexbyfood tests five different asynchronous email/sms reservation system prototypes with local restaurateurs. Sexbyfood pursues web-based reservation software instead.
December:
Sexbyfood operates out of a boatshed garage in Port Alfred. A new website design is tested on sisters, aunts, uncles and anyone around over Christmas.
2007
July:
Saturday 7 at 19:01. After 7 months and 70,000 lines of code, http://www.sexbyfood.com launches to the public at 7:01pm on the 7th July 2007, sharing a birthday with Ringo Starr. 2007 is the Chinese Year of the Dog, the International Year of Deserts and Desertification, and the 250th anniversary of the birth of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The original "South Africa's Guide To Eating Out" becomes "The Best Way To Find And Book Restaurants", supported by Sexbyfood's new web-based reservation software.
August:
Sexbyfood hires its first employee, Cara Garisch, a 3rd year English, French and Media major at the University of Cape Town, to work 20 minutes per day and develop an experimental Facebook campaign. Sexbyfood's web-based reservation software adds AJAX functionality.
2008
March:
Sexbyfood launches an API and introduces an updated client-side design. The traditional client-server-client postback cycle is replaced completely with AJAX.
April:
Sexbyfood moves to a brand new office located in the heart of Cape Town's City Bowl. Cara becomes Sexbyfood's first full-time employee. Eighteen restaurants are listed. In the spirit of Benjamin Franklin's "early to bed, early to rise", business hours are established from 07:30 to 16:00. Eat Out, one of South Africa's largest restaurant guides, becomes the first Sexbyfood Associate website.
May:
Work begins on porting 120,000 lines of PHP code to Ruby.
2009
February:
Fifty restaurants in four South African provinces are listed to receive reservations.
March:
Friday 13. Sexbyfood flips the switch on a new dedicated server and Ruby codebase, 11 months in the making and 6% of the size of the previous PHP codebase. No sooner, and someone asks: "Wouldn't it be great if we could write Javascript on the client... and server?"
Sexbyfood welcomes Dining Out, one of South Africa's largest restaurant guides, as a Sexbyfood Associate website.
October:
Friday 2. The Inevitable: Sexbyfood starts running Javascript on the client... and server... and adds performance optimizations and offline access, courtesy of "Bird", a sobriquet for Sexbyfood's latest NIH DIY platform. Here's to another 5,000 hours of Kind of Blue, 917 playcounts of Take Five, and 2,000 hours of Bird and friends.
2010
January:
Monday 25. Sexbyfood focuses exclusively on its web-based reservations book with the launch of a home page directed at restaurateurs.
Our Core Values
Sexbyfood exists to add value to each restaurateur, each user, associate, developer, employee and the neighbourhood community. Sexbyfood is creating something special and built to last. We thrive on:
Innovation Business is craft and the best craft is never finished nor an end unto itself, but only a beginning. There is no such word as "should". Consistency is the last refuge for the unimaginative. When in doubt, be dangerous. There is always a better way. Follow your enthusiasm. Change is an opportunity. Continuously improve and explore. Quality takes precedence. Laugh.
Simplicity Humility. Design is how it works. Frugality breeds resourcefulness and invention. Shoot first, log later. A penny saved is a penny earned. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. When in doubt, edit. "There seems to be a perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult... it's likely to continue this way. Ships will sail around the world, but the Flat Earth Society will flourish..."
Integrity Say what is meant. Speak in private as you would in public. Does it pass the Newspaper Test? Do what is said. "Do what you must do and do it well". Manage expectations. Take responsibility. Broadcast. Timeliness is godliness. Data trumps intuition. The most important things cannot be measured. Be honest. Do good. (Innovation)15 x (Simplicity)15 x (Tenacity)15 x (0 Integrity) = 0. Integrity has no exceptions. Trust each other.
Tenacity Focus. "Do one thing and... do it well". Easy does it. Exude positive energy. Energize others. Take it on tour. There is no time like the present."Early to bed, early to rise". Celebrate success. Diligence is the mother of good luck. Nothing is as it seems. Do not give up. Everything is possible. The impossible just takes longer. Energy and persistence conquer most things. Where there is no doubt, the wind is your companion.
Let us know what you think we need to improve, give us your advice!
Thank You
To our customers, friends and family who always open the door, lend us an ear, give us the time of day, support us, make special calls on our behalf, show patience and unwavering faith and confidence, thank you.
We've decided it's time to make things even simpler. And so we want to focus exclusively on our restaurant reservations software. Please visit one of our Associate websites: Eat Out or Dining-Out to view your restaurant of choice and place your reservation (which will be directed through Sexbyfood behind-the-scenes).
Thank you for your support!
#{audience}
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Enter your existing Sexbyfood account details:
Your old email address:
Your password:
Enter your new email address:
For assistance with any restaurant or reservation arrangements, please contact Cara Garisch. For opportunities, questions, comments, suggestions, or developer support, contact our founder Joran Greef.
Keep your reservations and contact information together. Communicate more easily among members of your team. Clear your mind. Enjoy the process of reservations and discover a new way to spend more time attending to your restaurant.
Highlights
Know who your guests are when they call and give their name on the phone.
See how your reservations change over time and who made the changes.
Receive reservations from your website into your reservations book.
Access your reservations wherever you are (even on the plane).
Create a list of restaurants relating to a particular topic. Your list can include any restaurant listed on Sexbyfood and can be devoted to any theme or subject, eg. "South Africa's top ten restaurants", "Best places to enjoy sunsets in Cape Town", etc. You can add as many restaurants as you like to your list.
Notices can be setup to be displayed to customers and/or managers whenever a reservation meets certain date, day, time, people or seating area conditions.
