Well, well, well – look who’s been busy! We’ve actually got 29 real menus from the US, Canada, and the UK live on our site now. Thanks to all of you who submitted menus and feedback in August. Keep submitting menus and feedback. 

Let’s be honest – this test has been a bit of a rollercoaster. We’ve hit some walls, celebrated some wins, and learned a lot of XML, PHP and JS basics. But here’s the kicker: we managed to process 50% the PDF menus submitted. Honestly? We’re shocked this worked at all. And our menu generation & updates workflows and times are improving weekly.   

Plot twist: AI turned out to be our secret weapon, saving us thousands in development costs. Who knew robots could be such good coding buddies? Sometimes you just have to embrace the chaos.

On the business side, our board voted to research moving this whole operation to our US charity arm, Modern Technology for the Blind 501(c)(3). Big moves happening over here – research starts this week. Hoping this will open up funding options. Let’s be real: if we cannot find funding, this test will fail. Stay tuned!

Now comes the real test: getting additional actual humans to use this thing. We’re planning to unleash our menus on unsuspecting folks in Boston-Watertown (hello, Perkins area) and a couple of NYC apartment buildings. Time to see if this actually works in the wild.

Think you can help us figure this out? Helen’s waiting for your brilliant ideas at [email protected]. Fair warning: she might put you to work.

Still making restaurants accessible, one menu at a time,

Helen and Stephanie (well caffeinated & cautiously optimistic)