

DontEat.at: Check into a NYC restaurant, get texted of health code violations - ssclafani
http://donteat.at/

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rumpelstiltskin
A bunch of us decide to go out to eat. We look up retaurants on yelp,
menupages etc and pick a place to go. When we get there, we check into
donteat.at and we get notified of a bunch of health code violations, at which
point we decide to find a diff place to eat.

Wouldn't the user experience be better served by allowing ppl to enter a
restaurant name into donteat.at from anywhere (like from their desktop after
reading about it on yelp) and getting the health code violations? Wouldn't
this save a lot of time and hassle?

Whats the point of getting notified after getting to the restaurant?

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bretthoerner
> Whats the point of getting notified after getting to the restaurant?

I don't know about you, but I'm not adding another step to the list of things
I have to remember to do (manually) when picking a place to go. Foursquare is
one of those things that some people will _always_ use when they arrive
somewhere, and so for them it's a 0-extra-action way of saying "Careful."

Now, I don't actually use Foursquare, but I get why this would be neat for
someone who does.

~~~
coderdude
I'm with rumpelstiltskin on this. Being persuaded to not eat somewhere _after_
getting there (maybe you made a reservation, even) and then having to make the
decision to leave and find another restaurant is a total pain in the ass.
Especially during, say, dinner time when the whole area is trying to eat as
well. Maybe you went way out of your way to get to that restaurant. Maybe you
told your date where you were going and she got all excited about it, now
you're stuck eating there -- health code violations or not.

That said, I think the idea of this service is totally cool. It just needs the
ability to check before getting to a restaurant. That will complete the
service IMO.

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martingordon
Ignorance is bliss.

I went through Philly's health code reports page and didn't eat out for a few
weeks.

~~~
jason_slack
have you ever been to San Jose....I literally get scared to eat out more than
2-3 places that I have eaten at for years.

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mannkind
The FourSquare integration is kinda neat, but it seems like the inspection
data would be more useful _before_ you go.

In Seattle/King County you can look up that info on a website or use the iOS
app 'Seattle Inspections' -- <http://inspectapp.com/>

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maxstoller
Wow, thanks for submitting my app. DontEat.at is my submission to the NYC
BigApps competition (<http://nycbigapps.com/>). Let me know what you think.

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dotBen
It would be helpful to have a little more info about the app on your site.

For example, it seems like it might only be for NYC restaurants given that it
is an NYC BigApps submission and with 4Sq being so NY orientated.

For example, will it notify be of a bad restaurant in Palo Alto?

~~~
maxstoller
Good point. I didn't expect it to make HN. To answer your question: no, it
does not work outside of NYC. It uses data provided by the city.

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TwoTon
This could be exactly the kind of spark 4square needs.

You know, what scrabble was to facebook and "googling my name" was for google.

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fedd
\- waiter! an omelette and a pair of kind words here please!

gloomy unhappy waiter comes and puts the omelette on the table.

\- waiter! and where are the kind words?

\- okay. don't eat this omelette.

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joe_the_user
Hmm,

I am not in the least the crusading defender of restaurant owners, but this
thing seems kind of unfair.

Should not a health violation that's bad enough mean the place has to be
closed and anything else mean that the place is OK? If the health departments
are "corrupt" and not shutting down places, why would we put credence in their
inspections at all?

The whole approach seems like an exercise in interpreting data in a fashion in
which it wasn't meant to be interpreted.

You could extract similar sorts of _poor_ of quality markers from lawsuits
filed against businesses or whatever.

Am I missing something?

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luckyland
Seems like this would be very useful in a city that doesn't have an already
corrupt restaurant inspection culture.

~~~
ams6110
My thought was of Guido from the movie _Risky Business_ : "never fuck with
another man's livelihood."

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asnyder
If possible, you should also raise flags for restaurants that have low scores
in their initial inspection, but corrected it in the follow-up. You'll see
lots of restaurants hit with a failing number of points, then they get the
mandated follow-up visit the next week which they "clean" up their act and get
an A (and all its privileges). I want to know if the restaurant I'm eating at
is one of those so that I can make an informed decision and possibly avoid it.
The grade postings only show the last grade, and not the last 5 or 10 point
scores.

You can also issue a warning for a serial offender, one that makes a habit of
repeated high and low scores.

~~~
maxstoller
Good points, thanks. According to the NYC health department, the followup
visit is "roughly" within the next month after the failed inspection -- but my
guess is that they fall behind often. This is truly a MVP but I will continue
to develop it if there is enough demand.

~~~
asnyder
Indeed, according to the fact sheet
([http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/downloads/pdf/rii/restaurant-
gra...](http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/downloads/pdf/rii/restaurant-grading-
faq.pdf))

 _Initial Inspection. Every restaurant is scheduled for an unannounced
inspection at least once a year. A restaurant that scores 0 to 13 violation
points on this inspection, called the “initial inspection,” receives an A
grade.

Re-inspection. A restaurant that does not receive an A on its initial
inspection does not receive a grade until it receives a re-inspection. The re-
inspection will occur at least a week after the initial inspection, giving the
restaurant a chance to improve its sanitary conditions. At the end of the re-
inspection the restaurant will receive a grade card. If the grade is an A, the
card must be posted immediately. If the grade is a B or C, the restaurant will
also receive a card that says “Grade Pending.”

The restaurant has the choice of immediately posting either the grade card or
the Grade Pending card until it has a chance to be heard at the Health
Department’s Administrative Tribunal._

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JoeAltmaier
These guys will get their buts sued to oblivion. Is it libel? It will be, the
minute they are out of date or have a data error.

The place isn't closed, because the violations are not bad enough. If they
Should be closed, then the health code is not strict enough. Is it right to
panic people with alarmist reports? Are diners sophisticated enough to
interpret those reports?

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rebeccaaazhou
this is a great use of public data! more value add for checking in and using
foursquare.

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davidw
Actually eating in .at isn't too bad, it's just not very good for you.
Neighboring .it is healthier and has more variety:-)

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jason_slack
very interesting concept for sure...How do you plan to distinguish from Yelp
and people commenting on Facebook?

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gaius
Clever, but really, you should have checked how it would look when posted on
Facebook.

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maxogden
This is either highly coincidental or a rip off of "Don't eat that!", based in
PDX: <http://www.flickr.com/photos/aaronpk/5049962228/>

~~~
maxstoller
Pure coincidence. I've never seen that app before and can't find it on Google.
Can you link it to me?

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TheAmazingIdiot
here: <http://donteatit.heroku.com/>

But dead link. It's the link in the seen picture at full rez.

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idigit
Nice job, MaxS!

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ehosca
thats nice .. how will you monetize it ?

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jpwagner
someone bought a domain name before they knew what to do with it...

