GRND RAPIDS, Mich — A Grand Rapids designer has launched a new website to help locals find the best happy hour deals across "Beer City."
Zeke Kooyer created HappyHourDealsGR.com as a side project to solve a problem he noticed when trying to enjoy a night out on the town.
"There used to be sites out there that were updated with happy hour deals. And after COVID, there just weren't many," Kooyer said.
The website allows users to search for food and drink specials by restaurant name, time, or specific vibe, such as a sports bar. It also features an interactive map to show users what deals are nearby.
"So the website basically lets you search for deals around you for happy hour at restaurants and bars. So you can, there's a way to look at a map, you can see what's around you," Kooyer said.
Kooyer, a full-time designer, runs the site completely pro bono. He inputs the deals himself and relies on community submissions through a form on the website to keep the information growing.
"I'm just putting them manually. I do have a form on the site. And after I posted on Reddit, a lot of people sent in deals, so I was able to add a lot," Kooyer said.
While the website is still new, Kooyer is already seeing positive feedback from the community online and in person.
"It is fun showing people it in person. Yeah, and having them, like, go through and be like, 'Oh, this is cool. Like I could use this,'" Kooyer said.
He has no plans to monetize the platform, keeping it free of advertisements so users can easily find the specials they are looking for.
"I'm not making any money off it. There's no ads, or I'm not monetizing it, and I don't plan to. So it's just, it's cool to see people actually use it, like, I can see the usage of people going on the site, and then also, like feedback from people in person or in Reddit, being like, they're a bunch of comments I read, like, people being like, 'Thank you. I'll use this,'" Kooyer said.
This story was initially reported by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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