US Patent 9898788 Predictive restaurant ordering

A meal ordering service is configured to receive takeout and delivery orders from customers and to place the orders with selected restaurants. Past information regarding a customer is collected and analyzed to create a predictive model of the customer's meal ordering habits. On any given day, the predictive model may be used, in light of the current and scheduled status of the customer, to predict a time of day that the customer may want to receive a meal and to also determine a restaurant from which the customer may want to receive the meal. The meal ordering service may be configured to automatically order a meal for the customer from the determined restaurant so that the meal arrives at or before the predicted time of day.