Durham, voted “The South’s Tastiest Town” by Southern Living magazine, is home to both a burgeoning food culture and an exploding start-up scene. These two worlds will collide for the last two weeks in August as part of Bull City Secrets, a digital scavenger hunt hosted by Durham start-up PopUp. From August 16 through August 30, 2013 participants using PopUp’s new mobile app for iPhone can uncover secret menu items, discounts and giveaways at dozens of independent Durham businesses.

PopUp is all about location-specific communication, making it easy to leave a digital note at a physical place for yourself or for others. Arrive where a message has been left, and the note pops up on your phone disclosing some useful information about that specific place. Users can follow people and brands they like to get popup messages from those users, or create notes of their own and leave them for others to find.

Bull City Secrets makes use of this technology, allowing more than 20 local businesses — including Bull City Burger and Brewery, Fullsteam, Monuts, and The Parlour — to share secret messages with users of the PopUp app. When participants arrive at any of these businesses, they will receive popup messages alerting them to off-menu items, freebies and promotions that they can then redeem and share with other users. The PopUp team will also leave clues at various locations around town to help aid in the discovery of scavenger hunt locations and attract new users to PopUp.

In addition to giving participants an insider experience at their favorite venues, Bull City Secrets is offering great rewards for participating in the scavenger hunt. The user with the most popups redeemed and the most shared popups will receive a $500 American Express gift card. The business with the most secrets redeemed will win $500 for their favorite charity. For full contest rules, visit BullCitySecrets.com. Winners will be announced in early September.