About OpenPlate
Founded on lived experience.
I built OpenPlate because I live this.
I have coeliac disease. I understand the anxiety that comes with being invited out to eat. The mental preparation before walking into a restaurant. The internal checklist. The rehearsed questions. The second-guessing.
Dining out should be social. For many of us, it becomes strategic.
There is the quiet calculation before saying yes.
Scanning menus in advance.
Explaining cross-contact again.
The discomfort of feeling difficult.
Over time, I became increasingly uncomfortable seeing basic information about gluten-safe dining placed behind paywalls. When you live with a medical condition, access to decision support should not feel transactional.
OpenPlate was built differently.
Before building OpenPlate, I spent ten years serving the community as a police officer. That experience shaped how I think about information, fairness, and accountability. Decisions should be based on structured evidence, not noise. Claims should be weighed, corroborated, and transparent.
That same philosophy underpins OpenPlate.
Core access will always remain free. Searching venues, reading reports, and understanding reported kitchen systems will never require payment.
Optional subscriptions support development and additional tools. They do not influence venue scoring. They do not gate essential information.
OpenPlate does not certify venues. It does not eliminate risk. It organises community-reported information into structured categories to support clearer decision-making.
The goal is not perfection.
The goal is transparency.
To reduce uncertainty.
To make saying yes to dinner feel easier.
If OpenPlate helps even slightly reduce that mental load, then it is doing what it was built to do.
Scott
Founder, OpenPlate