BYU-Idaho student, Bryan Wilson, felt like students in Rexburg were unaware of the many local restaurants and businesses in the area. To fill this gap Wilson started his “Now What?” app.
When working for DoorDash over the summer, Wilson found that most orders were placed for fast food corporate chain restaurants.
“There's got to be more to Rexburg than just these same places I have home at Maryland that I could get any Tuesday that I wanted to,” Wilson said. “I've been able to work with the Chamber of Commerce and find out there's over 100 different local businesses in Rexburg. I wanted to get them the attention they deserved.”
Wilson works directly with businesses to keep the Now What? app updated with current information. On the app you can find specials, menus, prices and deals for Rexburg businesses. Wilson believes that with this information, that cannot be found on other places like Yelp and Google Maps, students are more likely to branch out beyond corporate chains.
“It's really just an issue of discovery,” Wilson said. “It's so hard to find something new, and after a long day of school, we really don't want to use our brains to try to figure out where to go. So, we resort to the easiest thing, which is something we already know about.”
Now What? originally started to highlight local restaurants, but as time went on, Wilson expanded to shine a spotlight on all local businesses.
“There's so much more to Rexburg than just the restaurants, and people don't just want to eat out all the time,” Wilson said. “So, I've decided to branch into clothing, activities, date nights and events.”
You can find the Now What? app in the App Store. For updates and more information, you can also follow the Instagram page here.