Extend/Manipulate the behavior of the Eloquent Query Builder to do custom things with your ORM-built queries

An Example Controller.php

<?php namespace App\Http\Controllers\Party;

use App\Http\Controllers\Controller as BaseController;
use App\Party;
use Session;
use Redirect;
use Request;
use URL;

class Rsvp extends BaseController {

	public function get($party_id)
	{
		$Party = Party::with(['Location', 'Rsvp'])->findByHashId($party_id);

		if (!$Party)
		{
			return redirect('/');
		}

		return view('party.rsvp-form', [
			'Party' => $Party
		]);
	}
}

App\Model.php

<?php namespace App;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model as BaseModel;

abstract class Model extends BaseModel {

	public function newEloquentBuilder($query) {
		return new QueryBuilder($query);
	}

	public function findByHashId($id, $columns = ['*'])
	{
		if (is_array($id))
		{
			return $this->findManyByHashId($id, $columns);
		}

		return $this->query->findByHashId($hash_id)->first($columns);

		// return $this->first($columns);
	}

	public function findManyByHashId($ids, $columns = ['*'])
	{
		if (empty($ids)) {
			return $this->model->newCollection();
		}

		$this->query->whereIn('hash_id', $ids);

		return $this->get($columns);
	}
}

App\QueryBuilder.php

<?php namespace App;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Builder as BaseBuilder;

class QueryBuilder extends BaseBuilder {

	public function findByHashId($hash_id, $columns = ['*'])
	{
		$this->query->where('hash_id', '=', $hash_id);
		return $this->first($columns);
	}

}