FOOD.COM: Better Order In

The 1950s gave America two things that changed dinner forever: take-out food and television. Families gathered around the newest technology in the house while dinner came home instead of the other way around. Half a century later, another screen arrived. The television became the computer. The phone call became a click. The neighborhood take-out menu became Food.com.

The late ’90s were the Wild West of internet marketing. Dot-com mascots, sock puppets, exploding hamsters and Super Bowl excess ruled the day. Rather than chase the future, we looked backward. We borrowed the optimism, humor and visual language of 1950s America—the era that invented modern take-out culture—and reimagined it for the digital age. Vintage postcards, retro advertising, roadside Americana and tongue-in-cheek food photography became the visual identity for the internet’s first food delivery brand.

Originally launched as Cybermeals—a name that sounded more like science fiction than supper—we acquired Food.com to give the brand something warmer, simpler and infinitely more human.