Choosing where to eat the daily special still feels a bit like an adventure. You leave the office hungry, glance at a bar’s chalkboard, check Instagram—which might not be up to date—or end up walking into your usual restaurant almost out of habit. Now, a new platform launched in northern Madrid aims to simplify that daily decision with a simple idea: check your phone to see what’s actually on the menu today at nearby restaurants before heading out to find them.
It’s called Qué Comeré and already features the menus of 28 restaurants in Tres Cantos and Colmenar Viejo. The platform lets you view the updated daily menu, compare options, search directly for a specific dish, and filter by dietary preferences. Its next step will be to expand to Alcobendas, San Sebastián de los Reyes, and then to Madrid itself.
Behind the project are two engineers, Sofía Etchegoin Suárez and Agustín Santiago Isasmendi, who realized that not knowing where to eat on a day-to-day basis is a common situation for many workers and residents. “There’s fantastic, affordable food at places that don’t appear in any guidebooks; many don’t even have a website or anyone to promote them,” explains Etchegoin.“That’s the map we’re drawing: the map of everyday dining.”
From the chalkboard to your phone
The key to Qué Comeré is that restaurants don’t need to use a complex management system, fill out fields, or spend time writing out each dish. The restaurant manager simply sends a photo of the chalkboard, a sheet with the menu, or even a WhatsApp voice message explaining what’s on the menu that day. The platform’s technology immediately converts this into a digital menu with a unified design and publishes it on the website.
“It’s so easy that almost no one believes it until they try it,” says Sofía Etchegoin. “The owners send the first photo, see their menu published instantly— in the exact same format as it appears on the website—and they’re blown away: ‘Is that it?’” That reaction was, in fact, one of the project’s starting points: adapting to the platform that restaurant owners already use every day, rather than asking them to take on yet another administrative task.
The tool, called Tiza, also recognizes photos of dishes. If a restaurant sends an image of croquettes, a rice dish, or a salad, the platform can link it to that specific dish and automatically retrieve it when it reappears on the menu. This way, the restaurant doesn’t have to upload the same photo over and over again.
Restaurants that plan their menus for the entire week can upload them all at once or schedule them to be published the following day. For users browsing the website, this means up-to-date information: if a restaurant doesn’t publish its menu, it won’t appear as available that day.
Find a meal, not just a restaurant
The platform’s philosophy flips the usual order of the search process. Instead of choosing a restaurant first and then finding out what it offers, users can start by deciding what they feel like eating— croquettes, a salad, a rice dish, or a stew. Qué Comeré shows which restaurants have that item on their daily menu for that day.
It also lets you compare offerings from different restaurants, view them on a map, check Google reviews, visit their Instagram profiles, and share a menu with someone else to decide as a group. The app also includes filters for vegetarians, vegans, or people who need gluten-free options.
The idea, says Etchegoin, is to prevent someone who eats out every day from always ending up at the same place due to a lack of information.“The menu changes every day, and many websites fall behind, showing what was available weeks ago. Our model is the opposite: if a restaurant doesn’t publish its menu, it doesn’t appear. That way, everything you see is up to date.”
For users, access to the platform is free. For restaurants, the service costs 14 euros per month, with no long-term commitment or per-diner fee. In addition to publishing their menus, restaurants receive a digital menu and QR codes to place on tables or at the entrance, so that anyone walking by can see what’s on the menu before going in.
The daily special is still going strong
The daily special has survived digitization, changing work habits, and the rise of food delivery because it retains an advantage that’s hard to match: for a reasonable price, it offers a complete meal that’s usually homemade. The founder of Qué Comeré rejects the idea that it’s simply “workday fare.”
“I think both options coexist, but I’m seeing the latter more and more: in so many places, you can get an amazing daily special,” he says.“For 12–16 euros, you get one of the best values for your money out there. Many dishes are true affordable luxuries, and many restaurants operate on very slim margins with their set menus—they really go all out.”
The data on the platform reflects this range. Most set menus fall between 12 and 16 euros, with many around 14. And the offerings change with the seasons: salads and cold dishes during the summer; stews, hearty soups, and more substantial fare in the colder months. There’s also a growing selection of vegetarian and vegan options, and, little by little, gluten-free alternatives. This is how this very local concept—which has been the norm for decades—survives.