Random restaurant picker for where to eat

Bickr looks up what’s around you and builds the stack. It only deals places that are open, so you don’t get sent to a kitchen that shut an hour ago. You say how far you’ll go, from five hundred metres to forty kilometres. You can also say what you’re happy to spend, or what you feel like eating.

Each card is one place. The photo, the rating, how far away it is. Swipe right to keep it, left to move on. Weighing up forty places at once is what stalls everyone, so Bickr never hands you a list. Films and shows work the same way in the what to watch picker.

Nobody agreeing? Start a room and share the six character code. two to five of you swipe the same stack, and the first place all of you keep is dinner. If you get to the end with no match, the closest thing to it wins. A wheel can’t do that. It’s why the same room settles things that have nothing to do with dinner, right down to agreeing on a baby name.

Restaurant roulette is one rule. You take the first place that comes up, or you deal again, and you only get so many goes. The deck above plays it for you, and everything in it is open now.

You can play it at the table with no phone at all. Everyone writes down one place they’d be happy with. Fold the papers and pick one. That’s where you’re going. Two rules keep it honest. Whoever wrote a place can’t argue for it, and whoever picks doesn’t get to look first. If someone really can’t face what came out, they get one veto for the night, and you deal again.

Nobody can decide because you’re all answering forty questions at once. A food decider is really three questions, in this order.

One. Are we going out, ordering in, or cooking? That answer alone cuts the field by about two thirds. If it’s cooking, our what to cook deck takes it from there.

Two. How far will we go? Say it in minutes, not kilometres. Minutes are what people actually feel.

Three. What are we each happy to spend tonight?

What’s left is short enough to swipe. You’re not looking for the best place in the city. You’re looking for the first one nobody minds.

If you want an app to decide where to eat, this is it. Bickr is free on a phone or a laptop. There’s nothing in the app stores yet. You open bickr.au. Want it on your home screen like an app? Put it there yourself. On an iPhone that’s the share button, then Add to Home Screen.

Two things to know. Places are best covered in Australia, because that’s where we built it and where we started. And on a laptop it often can’t tell where you are. When that happens it says so instead of guessing. Open the app and type a suburb.

The deck is free. The room is free. Everyone swiping it is free. There’s a paid plan too, Bickr+, and it adds to that rather than taking anything away.