New website lists restaurants offering carry out and delivery, categorized by city

A new website debuted Sunday night to keep customers informed about which restaurants in their neighborhoods are offering carry out, delivery service and view special deals and information. 

Powered by Beyond Juice + Eatery and BMG Media, detroitfoodupdates.com has added a few hundred restaurants throughout Metro Detroit in a matter of hours. Each listing has the business' hours, location, a link to a menu and information on whether hungry guests can get food delivered or if they need to pick it up. 

"I thought it would be really cool to be able to go online and see who is still open your area," said Elliott Disner, VP of Business Development of Beyond Juice, which has 14 locations around town. "It's been a very stressful time to try to make sure we're taking care of everyone as best we can, not only the customers, but our team." 

His first move was to call the web developer that Beyond Juice uses, BMG Media of Birmingham and see if it was possible to whip up an online database like this. Disner said BMG had no problem doing the work for free as a benefit to local businesses and customers. 

Restaurants can fill out a form that is linked to the front page of detroitfoodupdates.com and their listing should appear on the site in about 20 minutes, give or take; it is a manual process. 

Users can scroll through the entire list, or choose to view only restaurants in their city. As of Monday afternoon, dozens of cities around Michigan were represented, including Algonac, Livonia, Detroit, Ferndale and many more. 

"Our team ate out today at Vivio's in Warren, because our office is near there, so we're just doing everything we can to support the community," he said. 

Disner points out that patronizing the restaurants that are trying to reach customers with carryout and deliver can also make your food supply at home last longer. 

"As these restaurants are still open, it's important not to go through your food at home and to still be able to get food delivered to your door without interacting anyone," he said. "While that resource is available people should be utilizing it so they can save their food at home for a true emergency."

More:Along with dine-in locations, Whitmer closes theaters, gyms, libraries

More:As everything seems to be closing, Detroit Zoo explains why it's still open

mbaetens@detroitnews.com

Twitter: @melodybaetens