A couple of weekends ago, we designed and built a super-lightweight web application that solves a very small problem we have – collaborating on lunch orders. Up until now, we’ve always grabbed a paper menu out of the folder, pasted a sticky note on top of it and written down what we each want, handing it to the lucky person who gets to decode our handwritten chicken-scratch and place the order. We’ve tried other methods – Email chains, group Skype chats but it keeps coming back to pen and paper.

Enter LunchBox. Chris Merrill, founder of Super Web-O-Matic, was insistent that tons of companies larger than ours experience this problem all the time. He knows from his experience consulting with companies of various sizes that departments trying to place orders together typically get bogged down in long email chains.The idea for the app is really simple. Someone registers, adds colleagues and then adds restaurants. Restaurant listings only require a Name, Phone Number and URL to their menu.

Here’s how ordering works:

1. Once someone decides to place an order, they take the lead, inviting the members of their team they want to include and what restaurant they’re ordering from:

2. Once the team members get the invite via email, they click through to the Order page and add a comment listing what they’d like and what it costs:

3. When it’s time to order, everything is listed out with the restaurant’s contact info and the estimated cost:

After the order has been placed, it can be archived if it ever needs to be reviewed. Nice and simple, with as little back-and-forth nuisance as possible.

Check it out live, here: http://lunch.freshtilledsoil.com and http://lunch.freshtilledsoil.com/dashboard.php

Any developers out there want to help us make it come to life? Let us know.