Patent ID: 8626590

Claim:
A method for effecting an automatic online group order of food from a restaurant, the method comprising: at least one computing platform having a computer readable medium with computer executable instructions stored thereon for implementing automatic online group ordering of food from a restaurant: presenting, to a user, an option to start a new group order or to join an existing group order, and, in response to the user selecting to create a new group order: receiving, from the user, input for creating the new group online food order from a restaurant, the input including a list of individuals generated by the user at order creation time and a cut-off time for the order, wherein the list of individuals can include any individuals specified by the user at order creation time; providing for the user to select, at order creation time, an option for the user to pay for the group order and to set spending limits for individual orders; in response to the input, automatically and electronically sending invitations to the individuals inviting the individuals to participate in the group order; receiving individual orders from at least some of the individuals; automatically enforcing the spending limits for the individual orders at the time of placement of the individual orders; combining the individual orders into the group order; and in response to the occurrence of a cutoff time, automatically combining the individual orders that have been received as of the cut-off time and communicating the combined individual orders as the group order to the restaurant even if some of the individuals have not joined the group order as of the cut-off time; and in response to receiving input from the user to join an existing group order: determining whether a group order is available for the user to join; in response to determining that a group order is available for the user to join, presenting the user with a list of at least one available group order; receiving input from the user for selecting an available group order from the list; in response to receiving user input selecting the available group order from the list, displaying a menu for the selected available group order; receiving selection from the user of at least one item in the menu; determining whether the selected available group order is prepaid or post paid; and in response to determining that the order is prepaid, adding the user's individual order to the selected available group order and processing the individual order as part of the selected available group order.