"Man, this is cool," is a frequent response by first-time users of Waiter.Com’s "My Waiter" service, according to co-founder Michael Adelberg. "Online purchasing is getting more and more prevalent, but people still seem amazed that it actually works," he says. 

Waiter.Com is the brainchild of two Stanford Business School graduates, Craig Cohen and Adelberg, whose goal is providing online takeout service that is easy to use. Moving a step closer to their goal, the pair developed "My Waiter" to allow customers to customize the front page of the website to suit their needs and tastes. 

The site allows a user who has registered with their name, address and billing information, to personalize the home page after they’ve bookmarked it. "The initial setup takes about 15 minutes," says Adelberg. "After that, ordering could take as little as 15 seconds." 

Customers can save previous orders for "quick-clink" reordering or can create a new order from Waiter.Com’s over-1,000 menus online. Users can also create their top-restaurant list for easier access to their favorites. Once the order is placed by the customer it is immediately faxed to the restaurant and can either be picked up at a time specified by the customer, delivered (if the restaurant offers that service) or delivered by a third-party service such as Takeout Taxi, says Adelberg. 

"All a restaurant has to do to sign up with us is have a fax machine," he explains. "While most of our clients are in the West, theoretically we could be international." 

In fact, a number of restaurants in Buffalo, N.Y., have recently signed up to offer their fare on the site. 

That is one of the reasons Water.Com developed the "My waiter" program. "What would a person in buffalo care about a restaurant in Denver? Nothing. So we made it so that he can customize his preferences and does not have to be bogged down with information he doesn’t need." 

Another feature of the "My Waiter" program is that if a customer has complex directions for delivery, it can be written online to avoid confusion by delivery personnel. "This type of information can be saved and reused. Once a customer has provided detailed directions, they just have to send that information along the next time they order," he says. And they do order a next time. According to Adelberg, Waiter.Com has a No. 1 customer who has places more than 250 orders in the past two years. 

"My Waiter" will even send e-mail reminders to have lunch. "That was just a fun thing we added," says Adelberg. "We wanted to send e-mails to customers to announce daily specials or new restaurants in the area, so we just set up the reminder service." The reminders can be customized as well; you could send yourself a message, for example, reminding you to have a great day. 

Water.Com (http://waiter.com) became operational in 1995 and has teamed up with such restaurants as Domino’s Pizza, The Olive Garden, Chili’s Grill & Bar, Boston Market, KFC and Wolfgang Puck Cafes. 

--Einar Torbjernsen