It takes very little to turn an evening out into a bad memory — a disco where the music is all wrong, a diner that isn’t serving half the things on the menu, or a spa where the masseur has grubby hands. If only somebody had told you about these places before! Now the Grubhogs will do just that.

Grubhogs, a first-of-its-kind website to be launched in May, will have ordinary people writing about the highs and lows of their experiences at a restaurant, salon or spa that you plan to visit. The brainchild of 33-year-old Samir Nanjapa, a dentist based in San Francisco, the website relies on actual experiences to give the real picture. Click on the name of the restaurant, nightclub or salon, and you can read about the experiences of others who’ve been there before. The best part, of course, is that the information is free.

“There is a dearth of first-hand reviews on the services industry. Hence, an evening out becomes a matter of chance,” says Nanjapa, who has had his share of hits and misses on his trips to Delhi. On one visit, he landed up at a disco after his friends raved about the DJ there. “That’s when I found that the crowd was mostly teenagers and I turned out to be the oldest person there. The music was great, but that didn’t help salvage my evening,” he says, “And if it was difficult for me, it must be impossible for a foreigner.”

The website will be launched in the NCR, Bangalore, Goa, Mumbai and Chennai. There will be three broad categories — food and drinks, nightlife and leisure and lifestyle. The team has prepared a database of 2,000 places in the NCR. “Members will post information about new places they’ve come across as well as detailed reviews. There will be a page for businesses to list themselves as well as provision for businesses to interact directly with clients,” says Nanjapa, promising there will be no pop-up ads or extra advertisements on the webpages.

If pre-launch publicity is any indicator, the website is already a hit. “We already have around 400 members who have given us their inputs on various services and establishments,” says Nanjapa. Anyone can become a member for free by filling in a form.

The venture is largely self-funded and Nanjapa isn’t sure when he will break even. “We will ultimately charge businesses who want to advertise or be listed but that isn’t likely to happen any time soon. What we’re especially keen on is to have businesses improve their services based on the feedback on the website,” he says.

Apart from spreading the good (or bad) word about an establishment, the website will also highlight the variety of cuisine available in a city. “One question every tourist in India has is where to get good food. As far as they are concerned, Indian food ends with curries and spices. I hope Grubhogs can inform them of the world cuisine available here,” says Nanjapa. “Some of our salons and bars are comparable to the best in the world.” Now we can grade them.