Jonathan comes up with the recipe to make dining out a pleasure

Jonathan Thirkill, son of serial entrepreneur Andrew Thirkill, built Yazza.co.uk after becoming frustrated at the lack of restaurant details available online.

“I discovered the information I needed was scattered across a host of individual websites, online directories and restaurant booking sites, which made finding telephone numbers, opening times and menus very difficult. Online booking was also a complete nightmare.

“I researched it further and recognised the opportunity to close this gap by providing one online resource providing up-to-date information for all restaurants throughout the UK. In essence, it is an easy-to-use, one-stop-shop for those people wishing to dine out.

“I received excellent feedback from the restaurants I spoke to prior to the launch, and I am now looking forward to lots of restaurants uploading their details for free.”

Yazza aims to simplify the process for diners and provide restaurateurs with free features to help online bookings and market directly to customers.

Jonathan started work on the project in September 2009 when he was aged 16, and worked on it in the evenings and weekends.

The website will provide restaurateurs with a “dynamic dashboard” with information on, for example, bookings in real time and analysis of booking trends. This information is password protected by the restaurant.

Once a booking is made, the customer receives an email confirmation and an optional text message. The restaurant can then view all bookings.

Yazza is charging a £1 administration fee for all bookings made via the Look-and-Book service. The fee can be increased by the restaurateur to elevate their ranking.

Andrew Thirkill, one of Yorkshire’s most successful businessmen, turned around Ultralase before it was sold in 2005. Today, his business interests include equity release firm Age Partnership.