Brothers create online menus for their college towns

The convenience of having restaurant menus on one website is what draws local food aficionados to Btownmenus, but for creator Mike Rolland, the website is a reason to engage in family competition.

After returning from spring break during his freshman year at IU, Rolland went back to his dorm to order Chinese food.

“It took me 30 minutes to figure out where I wanted to get Chinese from,” Rolland said. “In order to find a good egg roll this should not be happening.”

Rolland said he thought it couldn’t be hard to scan menus into a website. He despised the idea of ordering through the phone because finding a phone number was sometimes so aggravating.

After Rolland heard someone at Pennsylvania State University was offering licenses to own a website, he asked his father Robert for financial assistance to get him started.

“This would be a great business for him coming out of college,” Robert Rolland said.
Btownmenus was launched by Mike Rolland, then a sophomore, and his friend Peter Margulies in August 2005.

When it first debuted, Btownmenus listed six restaurants on its website. Now, five years later, it has 30.

“We’re slowly expanding,” Mike Rolland said. “We’re all about personalization and developing a relationship.”

Not too long after Mike Rolland’s business was up and running, his brother, Dan, had the perseverance to start a similar one of his own.

Dan Rolland, now a fifth-year senior at the University of Colorado, started HungryBuffs.com in Boulder, Colo.

“I saw how successful he was with Btownmenus, and so I wanted to start one here,” Dan said.

HungryBuffs.com, started in November 2007, two years after Btownmenus was launched for the Bloomington community.

It began with 12 restaurants and now, three years later, he has 42 restaurants listed on the website.

With running similar businesses, Mike Rolland said there is bound to be some competition between him and his brother.

“It’s funny because we’re both competitive kids,” Mike Rolland said. “It keeps us on edge and motivated us to compare orders with each other’s sites.”

Today, the brothers and their father have a consulting firm, Rolland Group Inc.

Rolland Group Inc. has consulted on three additional websites now: HungryRams.com at Colorado State University, HungryBoilers.com at Purdue University and CactusMenus.com at the University of Arizona.

“It’s a great thing,” Robert Rolland said. “I put in a few hours a week to help them deal with the billing and accounting, and it keeps me close to them.”