Some people have said that Menu and Hours is “reinventing the wheel” because apps like Urbanspoon already do what Menu and Hours is going to do and they do it for free. I, respectfully, disagree.

Menu and Hours is going to give you the contact info, the location, the hours and the menu of restaurants in an elegant package that is focused on delivering the best user experience possible. That’s it. It’s not going to give you ads or reviews from people you don’t know. It’s not going to show you photos taken with cellphones and it’s not going to make you click and scroll and zoom just to find out when a place is open and what they have for you to eat.

As I was explaining the app to someone over latkes last night I came up with a real world example that I think perfectly illustrates why I want to see Menu and Hours out in the world. Using an existing app (in this case Urbanspoon) let’s find out if a particular restaurant is open at 5:30 and if they have a vegetarian main course on their dinner menu. Volare was the restaurant we picked at random to use for this test case.

Well, now I’ve seen a credit card ad and know that 20% of 183 Urbanspoon users don’t like Volare but I still don’t know either of the things I’m trying to find out.

I’m confused as to how someplace can be a sports bar, romantic and kid friendly all at the same time. I couldn’t fit it all in this screenshot but the hours section shows that Volare is open for dinner but has no indication of what time the restaurant actually opens and closes.

Another click to get to the menu and it’s actually just reframing the Volare website which isn’t terribly mobile browser friendly. I can’t read this at all and my eyesight isn’t that poor.

After zooming in to make the text large enough to read it doesn’t fit onto the screen so I’m scrolling left to right to read each line of text. So yes, in the end, you can find out if there is a vegetarian main course option on Volare’s menu using the Urbanspoon app.

You can’t find out the specific hours though (at least not anywhere that I see). I find this to be a frustrating experience. If I’m going to have to click, scroll and zoom and still not get all the information I want then this app doesn’t fill the need I have. What need is that? A tool to easily, quickly and efficiently get the information I actually want about restaurants.

The Menu and Hours experience will be streamlined and you’ll know exactly what information you can count on the app to have for each restaurant. The sole purpose of Menu and Hours is to save you time and frustration when you’re looking for information about restaurants. It’s cool if you don’t think that’s something worth paying for but I sure do hope we get to build this for the people who do find a better, more efficient experience to be something worth dropping a few dollars on.