Restaurant Discount Site Lapar Stops Selling Coupons, Turns Into a Messy Lifestyle Portal

An email newsletter came in to our inbox last night from Lapar.com which announced the close of business and the change in direction of the site. Lapar had been a popular restaurant discount coupon site offering deals to food lovers in Jakarta, Bandung, and Surabaya.

When it launched in December 2010, Lapar jumped into the burgeoning daily deals market, competing with the likes of disdus (now Groupon) and dealkeren (now livingsocial) but focusing only on discounts for food items. Business was brisk and it earned a vote of confidence from our own Rama Mamuaya for differentiating itself and focusing on just one category rather than selling discount coupons for everything under the sky. We wrote about Lapar a few times throughout 2011.

Lapar initially focused on Jakarta and Bandung and early last year it expanded to Surabaya. As of last week, Lapar.com had become a lifestyle site with an emphasis on food and health. Gone are the deals and the coupons, replaced with bits and pieces of news and articles about personal health and culinary tips.

Somehow, the change in direction was followed by a change in aesthetics and it doesn't look like the people behind the new Lapar were ready to launch the new site because things are all over the place. References to the old lapar are still there, news updates are disjointed, ads are placed liberally, many links are dead. If you thought the old Detik.com was an ugly looking website, somebody at Lapar managed to come with something worse. It's like they decided to throw everything on a board and turn it into a website.

Many people on Twitter had been asking about Lapar's new direction but the only response they receive was to wait until further notice. For those who asked about not being able to purchase deals anymore, they were told that the site no longer issues new coupons. There was supposed to be an announcement on the 15th last week. but the date came and went and the Twitter account stayed silent since the 10th of May.

Ayo segera habiskan sisa saldo kamu dengan membeli deal di Lapar.com. Untuk sementara kami tidak melayani approve top up dulu ya. — lapar.com (@laparcom) May 10, 2012

@YunieG halo Yunie, tunggu pengumumannya tanggal 15 aja ya :) — lapar.com (@laparcom) May 10, 2012

We were told that while ownership has not changed hands, Lapar.com is actually being run by a new management. We're looking to find out whether the change is due to the new management, an initiative from the founders, or both. We've reached out to the founders of Lapar but have yet to hear back from them.