My friend and I have been reading Hacker News for a long time and we recently decided to launch our own thing: OpenNow. It’s all about finding nearby restaurants that are open right now.
We still have a long way to go and would really appreciate any feedback or ideas you have around how to improve OpenNow.
http://www.opennowsf.com
Thank you!
This is something I've been trying to look for, for awhile now, especially late nights (not so much during the day for more obvious reasons but it does have some use during the day in some cases).
Few things to note. Since you have location and neighborhood set already, I would probably get rid of the request for location upon arriving. This will annoy a lot of people and you're only serving up SF to begin with, that doesn't seem like there is a need for that even if it maybe useful later.
The second is if you're planning to expand to other cities, why choose opennowSF (emphasis on the SF) in the domain name. Why not go with a more generic name to begin with rather than rebrand later?
The design isn't bad but I would maybe rethink the blue font for the results and have alternating background color for each result so its not blended so badly. I like that it displays how long before the business closes but I'd also like the business hours for the entire week listed so I can get a quick overview.
Also if the website has an online menu or website, include that. Not exactly sure if I'd use the share feature which btw I didn't even know was meant for sharing X restaurant was open till I clicked on it. First impression was I thought it was the twitter or facebook page for the restaurant. Also maybe have a simple sorting system such as sort by name (alphabetically) or by remaining business hours, etc.
Hope these help.
Thanks again!