MENU COMPENDIUM

What do you do when you’re looking for some place to eat out? For many of us, the first stop is Google.com. While you can find almost anything that way, it’s often out of date or incomplete. Even with Yelp.com, you can’t always get current information, and you usually can’t see what food a restaurant offers. But fear not – there is an alternative! CapitalCityMenus.com is a Springfield-centric website devoted entirely to collecting and sharing information on local restaurants. Creators Matt Mendenhall, Scott Mehring and Greg Chestnut, all of Springfield, originally built the site in November 2009 to replace the folder full of paper menus they had collected from local eateries. “People found out about it and it just blew up,” laughs Mendenhall. CapitalCityMenus.com offers information on 221 restaurants, including menus, ratings, hours, contact information and location on a clickable map. “We just rely on word of mouth,” Mendenhall says, adding that with 3,700 visits last month, they are constantly updating the site as submissions pour in. “We’re always watching for new restaurants, and we just focus on Springfield,” he says. “We started it because no one else really had anything like it.”