MENU HOLDER

Abstract

An open ended container comprising a top, bottom, front, back, right, and left sides, wherein the top side is open, the bottom side is slanted downward from the back to the front side, wherein the front side includes a flat area, and a back side including an attachment means, and wherein at least one of the sides comprises openings.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION(S)

This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application 61/382,161, which is incorporated by reference as if fully set forth.

FIELD OF INVENTION

The field of the invention is menu holders.

BACKGROUND

Fast food and local restaurant menus make their way into people's lives through the mail, email, food deliveries, and from restaurants themselves. The ones that people choose to save often end up forgotten and disorganized in a drawer or inconveniently clipped together and hung on a refrigerator with a clip that can only hold 1-2 menus before sliding down the refrigerator every time a person passes. What is needed is a better solution that allows people to conveniently review all of their accumulated menus and select the one most interesting to them. Further, such a device that could also serve as an advertisement would also be an improvement.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING(S)

FIG. 1 is a front perspective view of the menu holder.

FIG. 2 is a front elevation view of the menu holder.

FIG. 3 is a right side view of the menu holder.

FIG. 4 is a top view of the menu holder.

FIG. 5 is a bottom view of the menu holder.

FIG. 6 is a rear perspective view of the menu holder.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT(S)

FIGS. 1-6 show an embodiment of the menu holder 10. The menu holder 10 has holes 14 located throughout to decrease weight and allow for more menu-holding capacity. The menu holder rear side 18 is offset higher than the front side 22, and the bottom side 26 slopes towards the front side 22. This sloping insures that menus contained in the menu holder 10 lean backwards instead of forwards where they might catch on a person's clothing or more easily fall from the holder 10.

The menu holder 10 rear side 18 may contain magnets or other means in areas 30 for attaching the menu holder 10 to a refrigerator, cabinet, or other convenient location. The magnets may be three strong neodymium rare-earth magnets. Other means to attach the menu holder 10 could include boring holes in the rear side 18 that allow attachment on non-magnetic surfaces. Other attachment means could include suction cups for attachment to flat surfaces or hooked arms capable of hanging onto cabinet doors.

The area 40 could be used as an advertisement or message area to display a sticker, engraved words or logos, a small light-emitting diode (LED) or liquid crystal display (LCD) screen, or a thermometer. The advantage of these is that the menu holder could be used as an advertising/delivery mechanism, effectively placing an advertisement in a person's kitchen every day. The small LED or LCD screen could feature daily promotions through such sites as yelp.com or livingsocial.com.

The area 40 could include a dry erase surface board for writing notes or reminders. Such surface boards frequently adorn kitchen refrigerators and inclusion of such a feature on the front of the menu holder 10 would save area on the face of the refrigerator.

Most restaurants fail to indicate an appropriate tip for a specific delivery order. A central processing unit (CPU) including a tip calculator for computing the necessary tip for a specific delivery order could be included in area 40.

People are often concerned about their daily caloric intake and are curious about the specific nutritional content of a meal. Accordingly, a calculator in the CPU for computing the caloric content of a specific delivery order could also be pre-programmed and included in area 40. The CPU could track multiple meals for a period of time and provide the user with feedback on their diet based on their meal choices.

The area 40 could include a replaceable stack of adhesive notes. Each note could contain a detailed list, including whether a specific order from a restaurant was satisfactory or unsatisfactory, how long a delivery order took to arrive or typical cost of a food order from a specific restaurant. Such notes could then be adhesively attached to a restaurant menu for future reference.

Commonly, it is difficult for a person to decide on a type of food they desire or to select a type of food for a group of people of varying appetites. The area 40 could feature a random selection mechanism, such as a spin-wheel or pop-o-matic, capable of producing a random value. This mechanism could include multiple choices representative of differing types of cuisine, such as Asian, Italian or Mexican.

The menu holder 10 could include a removable divider for separating the menus from the receipts from past delivery orders. Users of the menu holder 10 could keep track of the amount of money they have spent on each restaurant. Alternatively, a container could protrude from the front side 22, allowing users to store receipts in this container.

In one embodiment, the menu holder 10 could include removable plastic dividers. These removable dividers could split up the menus in the menu holder 10 by at least one of the following: alphabetical order, cuisine type, range of hours open, typical delivery waiting time or distance. Alternatively, a number of different menu holders 10 could be included in a single set. The various menu holders 10 in this set could be organized on any one of the categories mentioned above.

The menu holder could be lightweight metal (aluminum) or plastic. The sizing could be any size, although small enough to accommodate a traditional tri-fold menu would be appropriate, such as with a width: 6¼ inches and pocket opening: 1 ¼ inches.

Claims

1. An open ended container comprising a top, bottom, front, back, right, and left sides, wherein the top side is open, the bottom side is slanted downward from the back to the front side, wherein the front side includes a flat area, and a back side including an attachment means, and wherein at least one of the sides comprises openings.

2. The container according to claim 1, wherein the attachment means includes a magnet.

3. The container according to claim 1, wherein the attachment means includes a borehole.

4. The container according to claim 1, wherein the flat area includes a light-emitting diode (LED) or liquid crystal display (LCD) screen.

5. The container according to claim 1, wherein the flat area includes a central processing unit (CPU).

6. The container according to claim 1, wherein the container includes removable dividers for categorization.

7. The container according to claim 1, wherein the flat area includes multiple adhesive notes.

8. The container according to claim 1, wherein the flat area includes a dry erase surface board.

9. The container according to claim 1, wherein the flat area includes a random selection mechanism.