Site listing local takeout, delivery services launched in Jefferson County

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Port Townsend web designer Frank DePalma has the website for those who want to support local restaurants while still practicing social distancing, but don’t know which establishments are still serving customers.

DePalma founded his web design firm, Totera Web Systems, in Port Townsend in 1998. Totera operates with a team of seven at the Port Townsend CoLab. As stay-at-home orders went into effect in Washington and other states, Totera saw an abrupt drop in traffic for its event-management platform, MyCityScene, which provides online event calendars and event promotional tools to communities across the country and around the world, including locally through PTScene.

Faced with some newfound availability to help struggling local businesses, DePalma created a website listing all the local restaurants and food purveyors who provide takeout and delivery services and were struggling to keep the doors open.

As of May 7, takeout-guide.com had more than 60 businesses listed serving Jefferson County and nearly 3,000 unique visitors within a few weeks.

“The response has been very positive,” DePalma said. “One advantage of being a small, local web firm is that we are agile enough to quickly pivot our operation to providing this resource for our community.”

DePalma said the free listing is available to any business experiencing difficulties during this time.

“Our hope is that we can incorporate the Takeout Guide site into our local PTScene.com event platform and keep it going after the current COVID-19 restrictions are lifted,” DePalma said.

The Takeout Guide is only available for residents of Jefferson County right now, although DePalma said there’s been interest from nearby communities.

“In an era of social distancing and seeing the resulting economic impact on restaurants, music venues and event promoters, we are also offering free consultation and reduced-fee or free services related to the service industry,” DePalma said.

Since March, DePalma’s web development firm has also made available a free Zoom widget that his customers can add to their sites and an online ordering system designed for takeout, in addition to waiving all event-promotion fees for MyCityScene users worldwide.

“We’ve also created new tools to promote online events that venues such as Finnriver are using to promote their new ‘Finnriver Incider Space’ events,” DePalma said, “Our hope is that, if we help each other through this time, we will have the opportunity to build an even stronger, community-minded and resilient local economy.”

To be included, visit takeout-guide.com, click on “Get Listed” and enter your information.

For more information, visit totera.com/covid-19-emergency-service-for-impacted-businesses.