What started as a good deed to help out a friend whose restaurant business has been "Covided" has become one of East London's fastest-growing foodordering digital systems.
"I was, and hope to be again, a regular at Ciao Bella in Nahoon," Jason Mark, founder and digital director of Floeo, an online marketing company, said.
"Ciao's owner, Shaun van Huyssteen, is a friend.
"Aside from being a customer I was a spectator and watched as he worked incredibly hard to get the Italian-themed eatery from zero to full-house signs in just more than a year.
"To see it collapse under Covid-19 restrictions was tough. I felt I had to do something about the situation."
Mark's Floeo team designed and activated Eatify in record time. It is a free app that gives customers a one-stop-shop for orders and deliveries.
Now that the pandemic has been reduced from stage five to four, restaurants can deliver meals.
"The Eatify app has already turned Facebook and website visits into online ordering for restaurants, and it ' s free, as long as they are active online."
He said food outlets without an online presence would struggle to survive if lockdowns continued.
"Floeo's marketing role is about giving customers options when buying, and our role is giving our clients media presence to serve them — which is what we did for Ciao and other local eateries, though the app can be used anywhere in SA and the world.
"Eatify, once the emphasis on ordering and delivery slows with the virus's lowered impact, is effectively a free restaurant management system: ordering, delivery and table reservation software that drives online sales, with zero fees.
"It integrates easily with existing websites and Facebook. Getting started takes minutes."
Van Huyssteen said he had started Ciao more than a year ago in "very hard economic times" but the hardships were nothing compared to the lockdown impact.
"We went from doing well to doing nothing.
"We are fortunate to have built up a good name, especially for takeaway pizza.
"Aside from good value-formoney food, our biggest selling point was service. We would open for coffees at six and keeping going until well into the evening. With lockdown that was not on."
He said the decision to run very lean financially had added to his chances of survival.
"I keep my eye on the cash balance. No investors or partners are involved and when we succeed — and we will — it will be a family effort."
Mark said fortunately for Ciao it already had a strong online presence with more than 1,600 Facebook friends, a following that would prove crucial to success.
"The virus has created havoc for entrepreneurs, but out of this disruption may come a new way of doing business, and digital will drive much of it."
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