Dating is common among restaurant workers, despite company policies to discourage such activity. Recently engaged to be married, Leslie Bucher and Eric Webster kept their relationship a secret while they worked together at a restaurant company that frowned on employee dating.
Building relationships with people outside the industry is often a challenge given the odd hours and weekend shifts worked by restaurant personnel, and restaurants’ policies can discourage dating among co-workers, said Bucher, who with Webster and their partner Lee Briars develops online training tools for food safety and alcohol service. To solve the dating dilemma, the Baltimore-based partners launched an online dating and social-networking site for the industry.
Visitors to the website can set up their own profiles for free, but to view others they must pay a monthly fee of $2.95. The partners hope to make the site profitable by attracting advertisers.
Does the site match up people?
Webster: We do not do that. We leave it to the user to choose a person. Through the search capability, you can drill down by state and find people who are close to you.
Briars: Others sites like
How did you come up with the idea for an industry-specific online dating site?
Bucher: We were talking with friends who are servers and bartenders, about how hard it is to meet someone. We had a friend who was using eHarmony but was finding it hard to meet matches and set up a date. We did some research, and there didn’t seem to be anything for servers or kitchen staff who make up the backbone of this industry.
There are industry-specific social-networking sites, but you’ve gone one step further.
Webster: It has all the functionality of a
Such as finding someone who works similar hours, but without violating company policy?
Bucher: You’re able to network and ideally avoid the issue of sexual harassment, and you can get to know people in a safe, secure environment and build from there.
