Big things are happening at orderTopia. We turned on online ordering for two restaurants this week. Elevation Burger in Falls Church, VA (order here) and Eppie’s (order here).

We’ve had a few orders placed at each, and they worked. Customers were able to create orderTopia accounts, build and pay for orders, and choose what time they wanted to pickup their orders. Our users got to walk right in, grab their orders, and go. No waiting in line to order or pay.

Of course, none of this would have been possible without the great team that’s been working with us. Here’s a short list of just some of the contributions made by Team orderTopia.

Brian Williford (@ohmybrain) has spent a ton of time creating a cloud-based POS and shopping cart that not only look sharp, but that work unlike any other we’ve seen. Between our first two restaurants (Elevation Burger and Eppie’s), we’ve had a ton of specific requirements that were insanely complex. Brian fit them all in, made them work, and did so in a way that’s user-friendly. Here’s just one example. Elevation Burger has a burger called the Vertigo Burger, for which you can choose between 3 and 10 beef patties. Here comes the complexity. Each patty adds additional cost, and, each patty has its own cheese slice capacity. Still with me? For example, the 3 patty Vertigo Burger should be able to have as few as 0 slices of cheese, but as many as 4 slices. Meanwhile, the 7 patty Vertigo Burger also has a possible minimum of 0 slices of cheese, but a maximum of 8 possible cheese slices. And of course, each patty / cheese combination has a different price. Brian built a persistent interface for the Vertigo Burger that dynamically changes the price and GUI elements (without forcing a page reload) when the customer builds their burger. When you change the number of patties on your burger, the cart changes the price, and the possible number of cheese slices. This is some awesome stuff. Watch it in action here: http://bit.ly/VertigoBurger

John Feminella (@SuperNinjaRobot), his consultancy Distilled Brilliance, and Kai Groner (@kaigroner) have done a great job building out the orderTopia API. It’s not ready for public use yet, but it’s close. We’re excited to open it up to iPhone and Android developers to see what you guys build. We’re working with John on our micropayment system now, but one of our first ideas is to pay developers a nickel for every order made using their apps built on the orderTopia API (quick math: 1000 orders made on your app, $50 in your pocket). Look for news on the API in early February.

Ron Duplain (@rduplain) and Nicole Radziwill (@nicoleradziwill), collectively Espresso Labs, built a great Windows-based desktop application for use at restaurants like Eppie’s that use a POS system that doesn’t have an open API. Now, using only a wireless kitchen printer and the desktop app, Eppie’s is able to take online orders from orderTopia, accept payment from customers online, and have the orders print in the kitchen at exactly the right time. This is a big deal, both for customers, and for Eppie’s. Customers don’t have to wait in line to order, or to pay. They just walk in, say who they are, and grab their bag and go. And for Eppie’s, no writing down phone orders, only to then type them into the POS. No printing out email orders in the office, and then typing them into the POS. In a nutshell, more orders, no extra work or different procedures. Eppie’s doesn’t even have to worry about collecting payment. It’s already been done online.

Thanks again to the entire team for the work leading up to this week. We’ve got a lot of cool products coming down the pipeline, but I wanted to stop for a minute and thank everyone who’s contributed so far.

Next up: more stores online soon, developer access to the orderTopia API, and orderTopia mobile ordering for iPhones and Androids.

orderTopia Elevation Burger Online Order Screenshot