Votemeal

Every few months, a group of friends meet in Bristol to eat and drink together. On and off, this has been happening for ten years or so. Each time the group's preferred time and place is deterministically decided by a single online poll. The pandemic put a stop to the meals, but we'll be meeting together again in 2024, in April, June, August and October.

This is roughly how the process runs:

• Before the start of each poll, people might suggest a new place to eat. Sometimes a lot of people come to the meals, so suggested restaurants should be able to accommodate and reserve a table for, say, twenty people. Additionally, the restaurant shouldn't have too much ambient noise, and there should be plenty of options for vegetarians and vegans.
• The poll runs from the first Monday of the month before the meal until the following Monday. Date options for the meal itself are Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings at 7pm (restaurants are often closed on Monday evenings). Restaurant options are listed with newly-suggested restaurants first, then returning restaurants in decreasing order of popularity. The restaurant that was visited for the previous meal is omitted. If a restaurant doesn't win after three polls, it gets removed.
• When the poll concludes, the earliest date among those with the most votes wins. For the choice of restaurant, the votes from the group of people who said they could make that date is used. The first restaurant that has the most of those votes is selected.
• Finally, those who voted are informed and a booking is made. In a few weeks we have an enjoyable meal together.

If you already know one of us, you can join a low-traffic, announcement-only mailing list to receive notification of upcoming polls and meals. Alternatively, you can subscribe to the Atom feed, where notifications will appear too.