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Student entrepreneur launches digital dining venture

AN ENTREPRENEURIAL student predicts its only a matter of time before his new digital dining business makes waves on a national scale.

Alex Redpath, a former call centre worker who is currently studying at Northumbria University, has created a new listings service for restaurants and takeaway shops which will initially be trialled in the North East.

The company, that hosts names, addresses and contact details, together with menus, of venues alongside local taxi numbers, then aims to roll the concept out in towns throughout the region and, by 2011, nationwide.

Mr Redpath, 23, was inspired to set up the firm when he tried to book a restaurant for his birthday and, after using Google, could only find significant information on two in his area.

He then caught the entrepreneurial bug when he enrolled on a part time course at Northumbria University, as he strived to find a more challenging career than his life in the call centre.

He had also grown exasperated at the amount of junk mail he received from restaurants on a daily basis at his home in Newcastle - and now hopes to help curb the amount of wasted paper by developing an online alternative.

The entrepreneur believes that just-Menus.com is on target for national success because it offers far more focused and easily accessible information than published directories such as the Yellow Pages, while it does not focus purely on major cities like other online directories on the market.

He said: “Entrepreneurship has always been in the family so it’s constantly been in the back of my mind. However, working full time in a call centre left me wishing I could challenge myself more. Once this opportunity arose I just simply couldn’t ignore it.

“One of our aims is to be as environmentally friendly as possible. Our service especially helps takeaways by reducing the number of menus they need to print and distribute, saving the owners the costs of printing and distribution and thereby increasing their profitability.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .