Someone pointed out my blog should include more of my past projects.

This project started in 2004 on a whim when I was still a metalsmith. I was hungry late at night, and needed to know what was open, near me, and good enough to eat.

So during a time when online restaurant databases were in alphabetical order I made a restaurant search and review site for Finland, and featured a time-based map where the dots changed color depending on whether the restaurant was open at that time or not, or serving breakfast or lunch. (People who follow this blog will note the pattern of yet another time based project.) I also made a tool to let restaurant owners edit their own information (novel at the time), and a multi-language review system where each rating point was associated with a particular word instead of just a number, so they stayed more consistent. I started out the site with the best foodies I could find, was merciless about deleting clearly crappy reviews. I have a lot of respect for moderators as a result, and the site grew quite a dedicated community around it.

Initially I added all of Helsinki's 800 restaurants by hand to a static gif map with a static gif dot on top of it. (In retrospect I must have pulled all of this off partially because I was young and hyperfocused like mad, with no diagnosis or meds yet...)

Screenshot of the site with a map of Helsinki on what is clearly not a Google map
The original gif-based map. Five zoomable sections of Helsinki, woah!

Got updated from that to Googlemaps in 2006 with the help of some great devs (Ari Flinkman, Juha Kaunisto, Anssi Ruohtula and Visa Kopu) once Google finally added Finnish street names. At the time, all places on Googlemaps were indicated by a teardrop shape, but that took up way too much visual space, so I opted for slightly drop shadowed dots again.

Google map with restaurant dots on it, right side a list of restaurants with reviews
Restaurants on Googlemaps! The Future indeed!

Since it was now possible, I decided to cover all of Finland, but was not about to add all those restaurants one by one. I tried to get a database from the phone company, but that was prohibitively expensive. So instead I got a list of establishments with a liquor license from the government, removed all bars and clubs, and ended up with something accurate enough to be granularly fixed by users later. I also added a feature that let other reviewers rate your review once they had gotten enough positive ratings for theirs. Enough downvotes from qualified users and the review would disappear.

The site got sold to MTV3 in 2008, and then got sold to CityLehti a few years later. I ended up working at MTV3 for two years as part of the deal, and they hilariously put me to work in their Lifestyle section despite the fact that I've never really read any women's magazines. My motivation for the project was the idea of the design, not so much food as lifestyle content.

Want to know something crazy? As of right now, 2025, it STILL EXISTS. Eat.fi is 16 years old. A teenager! In software years, that's unheard of.

Just goes to show how stable of a platform the web was and still is, especially compared to, say, proprietary mobile platforms run by Apple and Google.

Bonus: You can still find my original map design on Wolt's current app:

Wolt mobile app map with colored restaurant dots on it showing open or closed
They still owe me a free pizza though

Postscript

Several restaurant owners told me the site was essential in getting them through the first few months after opening. On the other hand, a certain Michelin Star chef refused to shake my hand because his restaurant had a 4.9 rating instead of a 5.0. (Reviews were weighted to eliminate outliers, so I stand behind the results being fair)

Another part of this whole experience was being repeatedly told (by men) in various situations, conferences, meetings and whatnot that the ideas or design or company couldn't possibly be mine. This culminated in a moment when I literally went on stage to accept an award for the site, made a little speech, and when I stepped down a bunch of guys surrounded the devs and I overheard "ah come on, you're not on stage anymore, no need to lie, obviously she had nothing to do with it". The devs, thankfully, corrected them, only to be told AGAIN, "No way that was her idea. No way."

So in this age of anti-DEI backsliding, I'd like to confirm for posterity with one more example that tech, for women, was never a meritocracy.

Post postscript

Just before we switched to Googlemaps, I was chatting with a user online who was very upset that the site was going to be changed. I don't know who you were, dear user, but my water broke in the middle of our chat and I was in the hospital a few hours later, so if I suddenly seemed less engaged towards the end of the conversation, this was why.