enlarge Doug Jones/Staff Photographer

Mike Bolduc, delivery guy for 2dinein.com, loads the food he’s picked up from the Subway store on Western Avenue in South Portland for delivery to Portland.

A couple of locally based Web sites are expanding the options for customers who don't have the time or inclination to shuffle through a drawer full of takeout menus, phone in their orders or pick up their meals. The Web sites are doing business at a time when consumers are increasingly opting for food to-go and restaurants -- particularly large chains -- are looking at new ways to use technology to fill orders.

Takeout in general is expected to become more popular in the future, especially in family and casual restaurants, according to the National Restaurant Association's 2008 industry forecast. The organization reports that 18 percent of adults have used the Internet to place orders for dining in, carry out or delivery and roughly 40 percent consult an online dining guide or Internet search engine to choose a restaurant.

"There's more of a consumer demand to order online with the Web becoming more a part of everyone's day," said Darren Tristano, executive vice president of Technomic, a food industry research firm in Chicago.

Some major pizza chains also are creating ways for consumers to use cell phones to place orders. Papa John's introduced text message ordering last year, and Pizza Hut made the option available this month along with mobile ordering, which allows customers to access a modified Web site on their cell phones. Domino's Pizza began offering mobile ordering at some locations last year.

Chris Spaulding, an accountant in Windham, decided the Internet could help him and other consumers stop stockpiling takeout menus. In 2003, driving home after grabbing yet another copy of a restaurant's takeout menu, he thought there had to be a better way for restaurants to get their menus out.

His answer was mainetakeout.com. The online directory initially contained listings and menus from restaurants around Windham and Portland. The site grew as he distributed fliers and put up banners and reached out to restaurant owners.

The site now includes about 200 restaurants from Kittery to Augusta. The site gets more than 150,000 hits a month, Spaulding said.

"It just exploded about a year and a half ago," he said. "Five years ago, not as many people were looking online for information."

One thing that hasn't changed is the price. The site charges $30 a month for a listing, which may be part of the appeal for restaurants.

"The bottom line is they don't have to sell a lot of product to get back $30," he said.

Another Web site for hungry customers is 2dinein.com. The site allows users to arrange deliveries from about 15 restaurants in Greater Portland from their computers.

Although online restaurant delivery services have been around since at least 1995, 2dinein.com appears to be the only one in Maine.

The business partners -- marketing director Josh Meyer, finance director Matt Bolduc and operations director Ozan Apaydin -- thought such a service could do well in Greater Portland, an area with lots of restaurants and not a lot of bad traffic.

"We're essentially creating a new market in Portland," Meyer said.

He said the service, which started making deliveries in June, is handling hundreds of orders a week. They range from corporate orders for large lunches to people wanting a no-fuss dinner to hotel guests.

Delivery sales at the Subway sandwich shop on Western Avenue in South Portland have increased each month since the restaurant signed up with 2dinein.com, said Tony Parrella, marketing manager for the restaurant and 10 others in Maine. He said the service allows the restaurant to reach customers who aren't able to leave their workplaces easily -- without having to deal with the logistics and insurance issues of starting its own delivery...