Restaurant Mobile App Development: A Step-by-Step Guide

Good restaurants are searched everywhere, and those restaurants require a good mobile application. Are you wondering why? Let us find out.

We are all living in an era where online availability is highly valued, and the restaurant sector is one example. If we asked you how many times a month you and your friends crave outside food, the answer would be collectively huge.

However, if we asked you how many times you went out for it, it might take a while. This is where restaurant mobile app development comes into play. Whether it's your birthday or someone else's wedding anniversary, food is an absolute necessity.

So it makes perfect sense why you should create a restaurant app for your business.

In fact, during the COVID-19 pandemic, restaurants without mobile apps faced significant challenges. Many turned to online delivery services as a lifeline. Those with established apps saw a surge in orders and revenue.

In this guide, we'll walk you through the process of creating a successful restaurant mobile app. From defining your goals to launching your app, we'll cover everything you need to know. So, let's get started!

Market Trends in Restaurant App Development

As per the latest reports, food-related services remain one of the fastest-growing segments of the billion-dollar app industry.

Here are some key stats about restaurant mobile application development that will help you make an informed decision:

• The food delivery app industry is expected to grow to a market size of $165 billion by 2029.
• Meal kit delivery services are projected to reach $19.52 billion by 2028, setting a new record.
• American customers prefer using restaurant apps over third-party platforms mainly for convenience (27%), ease of use (22%), and lower fees (22%). Additional advantages include lower costs and faster service.
• Key features valued by restaurant mobile app users while online food ordering include loyalty programs, online reservations without phone calls, and the ability to order food via mobile or web platforms.

These statistics clearly show that the food-tech industry is rising rapidly and is anticipated to expand dramatically in the upcoming years, alongside increasing investors’ attention.

The restaurant mobile app development services are in huge demand today, and if you’ve a profitable business idea in this field, it’s a perfect time to start acting.

Why You Should Invest in Restaurant Mobile App Development

Creating a restaurant mobile app can benefit both new restaurant business owners who are yet to launch into the market and those who are running their restaurants and are looking to add to their marketing and expansion efforts.

On that note, let's examine some of the most prominent benefits of building an adept app for your restaurant.

1. Brand Value Addition

A mobile app that allows users to access and locate nearby restaurants from any place and order their favorite food without being restricted to a device is a definite value addition to the brand. Convenient connectivity goes a long way when it comes to creating impressions in the consumer's mind.

2. Improved Customer Experience

A user-friendly restaurant mobile app development that works smoothly from locating restaurants, making food items selections, ordering dishes, and making payments, to tracing orders till they are delivered, adds appeal and creates a refined experience for the app users.

3. Enhanced Payment Processing

When a user orders food online, one of the most critical steps for a business owner is payment processing through the payment gateway. An application with integrated third-party UPI payment app enables this process from anywhere.

4. Better Response to Bookings

When consumers can easily book a table for a suitable slot via a restaurant mobile app, they feel free to complete other chores before they settle for their meal at their favorite restaurant. A mobile app offers this convenience and invites more users to use the facility at hand.

5. Loyalty Benefits

Loyalty programs over specific online food delivery app development allow for retaining old customers and attracting new ones. A new consumer will download a certain restaurant application development if it offers more deals than other restaurants.

6. Transparent Feedback

A restaurant's mobile app mostly always shows the feedback received on its dishes or service. This creates a reliable environment for users as they know the positives and the negatives.

Also, customer reviews guide restaurant owners to modify or improve their customers' desires.

These are just a few of the benefits that restaurant mobile app development offers both new and existing business owners.

With a mobile app, reaching a larger audience in the same vicinity becomes possible without spending time reaching people outbound or attending endless phone calls.

Important Read: How to Remove Google Reviews: Removal, Response, and Reputation Building

Different Types of Restaurant Mobile Apps

Now that you know why you should consider building a mobile app for your online food business, the next step is to decide what type of app needs to be developed.

While, as users, we feel all apps do the same thing, each app is discreetly designed as per the online food business model.

Here are the most popular mobile applications supporting majority of the food businesses today:

Find Your Restaurant App

Suppose an online business allows users to find nearby restaurants within specific geo parameters. In that case, you should develop a restaurant locator app. The app allows users to find restaurants according to their choice of cuisines, food items, area of dining or ordering, and popularity.

This type of restaurant mobile app development requires comprehensive information on all the restaurants, cafes, and diners in different cities and neighborhoods.

This data can be collected using the Google Places API, and then geolocation can be integrated to assist users find restaurants and eating joints within their radius.

On-table Order and Pay App

The on-table order and pay app provides an automated system for ordering food and payment functionalities from the restaurant's table without any personal interaction with restaurant staff.

In times when human-to-human interaction is reduced, technology pledges to bring them closer. The food ordering app includes a feature to place an order from the many available, which creates a check for an order picked up by a kitchen display system (KDS).

This order can then be finished through a payment and tip POS created, which can be closed on fulfillment of the function by the customer.

Online Ordering and Delivery App

This type of restaurant mobile app, developed with end-to-end operational features, provides complete business support for meeting requests about online food ordering and delivery.

The app enables customers to find nearby restaurants, access menus, place orders, pay for selected items, and track order delivery.

These can further be divided into two types:

Full-service application: These online food applications are created without any support or feature added from the outside. Here, the app developers code for all features, and the entire operation is independent of any third-party API.

Delivery aggregator or online food delivery service app: This mobile app development allows restaurant owners to connect to a dedicated delivery service provider to deliver orders from their favorite restaurants to the customer’s locations. One famous example is the Zomato mobile app.

Must Read: How Much Does it Cost to Build a Food Delivery App in 2024?

Loyalty Program App

A loyalty program app has been developed mainly to share details of ongoing and upcoming restaurant or food deals. Restaurants build this app independently for timely push notifications, alerts, and customer reminders.

The app helps restaurant staff track how many old and new customers come on board due to the offers or marketing campaigns the restaurant runs. They can further strategize their activities based on the user response.

Must-Have Features of Restaurant Mobile Apps

The type of restaurant mobile app development you choose will determine the features you need to consider. However, a few common features will be relevant to most restaurant and cafe customers.

1. Contacts

This is a must-have feature for any type of restaurant mobile app. This will allow the customer to quickly build a map route to your restaurant, or call you with a click of a button or other contact options.

2. Photo Gallery

You can add this feature to describe the concept of your restaurant, its benefits, and features, you can also showcase photos of the interior and the prepared dishes.

3. Menu

Allowing users to browse the menu is one of the most important options for a restaurant app. As per the statistics, more than 70% of users of such food mobile applications first look at the menu to study it and the pricing policy of the establishment, and only then do they visit the restaurant of their choice.

4. Reservation option

The reservation option in the restaurant mobile app helps customers choose a convenient date and time of visit, without going into the trouble of calling the outlet or waiting for hours to get a table.

5. Pre-order of dishes

Time is precious, and allowing customers to pre-order dishes from the menu will help save their valuable time. This means clients can save a lot of waiting time at the venue.

6. Food delivery

It is freedom to order from any place at any time without pausing everything and making a call to the restaurant. This is an excellent opportunity to expand the customer base at the expense of people who do not have time to visit the outlet but would like to order from you.

7. Loyalty program

When it comes to e-commerce app development, a loyalty program is the primary feature for retaining customers and generating repeat sales. A loyalty program can include visit rewards, club cards, family discounts, or a free coffee after every third visit. Carrying loyalty cards is inconvenient, but a mobile app is always available.

8. Order history

Although not all restaurant mobile app development adds this feature, it’s helpful. Suppose a person has a particular taste, for instance, and they order the same salad and drink. In that case, they need to access their previous order and repeat it quickly.

9. Push notifications

Push notifications appear on the app user's phone screen. They can be sent periodically to remind customers of offerings, promotions, special events, or updated menus.

A properly configured mobile app, coupled with good usability, will enable restaurants to increase profit by attracting and retaining new customers.

10. Pre-order dishes

This feature saves you time when the client is in a hurry. This is especially important for fast food restaurants, where customers usually wait in line rather than at a table.

Step-by-Step Restaurant Mobile App Development Process

Now that we’ve covered the basics, from the benefits of building a restaurant application development to what features you should add, we finally delve into how to create a restaurant mobile app.

While the time it will take depends on the type of the app and what features you decide on, here is the overview of the restaurant mobile application development process discussed in 8 key steps:

Step 1: Conduct Market Research

Building the best restaurant app starts with analyzing market rivals and the latest industry trends. This will provide you with valuable insights into your domain and target audience.

When doing market research, ask yourself what the demand and supply are. You should answer this before you delve into building a restaurant app.

Step 2: Work on a Business Plan

Deciding what type of app you should build and planning are integral to the pre-development process.

When writing a business plan, it's advisable to come up with a unique business idea or pick some of the most successful business ideas to ensure you'll have a profitable app.

Step 3: Select a Food Delivery Application Development Company

This is one of the most crucial steps that decide the success of your restaurant's mobile app development.

Look for a credible, experienced restaurant app development company that has worked with similar businesses. Check the company's portfolio and website before discussing your project details with their team.

Step 4: Decide on UI/UX Design

UX/UI design is a crucial part of restaurant app development. Following the latest design trends can create a positive user experience and increase your brand's loyalty.

The process involves creating custom illustrations, animations, visually appealing graphic interfaces, and mini-interactions to engage with your audience and stand out.

Step 5: Data Safety and Protection

When considering building a restaurant application for your online food business, prioritize the security and protection of clients' information.

Ensure you take all necessary measures to prevent cyber attacks, data breaches, or other cyber threats. Consider proper security measures for an app.

Step 6: Development Process and Testing

During development, ensure you implement all the features necessary to make the best restaurant app. However, once you're done, take your time to launch it.

Many things should be done before launching. Quality assurance always matters. At this stage, the development team tests an app and fixes any bugs that may arise.

Step 7: Application Launch with Pre- and Post-Marketing

Finally, your mobile application is ready! However, launching it successfully depends on how well the pre and post-marketing stages are planned.

Focus on running ad campaigns and leveraging social media channels to increase awareness of your app and attract potential customers.

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Step 8: Post-Launch Activities

Don’t relax even after you launch the app. Project support and ongoing maintenance still matter if you don’t want your app to fail within a week or two and want it to run smoothly.

Focus on keeping it updated with the new features that may show up in the restaurant app industry!.

What to Consider During Restaurant Mobile App Development

A guide to a restaurant's mobile app development would be incomplete without mentioning the most critical factors that influence the app's successful development, deployment, and operations.

Now, it is important to understand that developing a restaurant app involves a significant amount of back-end effort, depending on the app's user variants.

The different users and stakeholders determine the development plan, which involves steps around the discovery phase and other modules of the restaurant app. Thus, the architecture of the restaurant app will vary depending on its complexity, which will define its effectiveness.

These factors help the app or restaurant owner decide how robust the app must be to meet the development goals.

Bandwidth and Load Testing

While developing the app, it is essential to acknowledge that despite a huge user base that uses the application simultaneously, the app's IT must be robust, and all possible risks leading to an app crash must be kept in mind.

The idea is to ensure that the app remains operational under all circumstances and that the data for the app owner, restaurant owner, and user is not lost.

The probable scalability, response time, and resource usage must be considered to address these factors.

Budget & Future Planning

It is a common observation that when an owner starts developing a restaurant app, the initial requirements casually overshoot.

Especially when the development team uses agile practices for app development, they have the luxury of letting the requirements pour in. But then the pocket is what is most affected.

Sticking to your basic designs and user stories is a wise suggestion. Even though some new input comes to mind, decide on a plan to balance the existing and new components within the budget.

To develop an efficient application, estimate the ROI of each new addition or add request.

Competitor Analysis

This forms the core around which the app will be developed. A successfully running application will offer the best case study for deciding what to include and what not to include while your app is being built.

A thorough competitor profiling would provide insight into the popular features, and the feedback or reviews would help inform the development of a better application.

These factors will help the development team quickly decide the quality to deliver and deploy.

Read Next: Mobile App Development Using Python: A Step-by-Step Guide

How Arramton Can Build a Budget-Friendly App For Your Restaurant

So far, we’ve discussed a lot about restaurant mobile app development, starting from its definition and features and finishing with the development process description.

Now is the time to think about an excellent app for your business.

Whether you wish to build your own restaurant app from scratch or improve your existing application, Arramton Infotech, a leading restaurant app development company, has the perfect solution in the form of a professional restaurant app developer.

All you need to do is contact us by clicking this link.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. What is a restaurant mobile app?

Ans. A restaurant mobile app is a mobile application that allows customers to access your restaurant's menu, place orders, make reservations, and receive updates and promotions.

Q. How Much Does Creating a Restaurant Mobile App Cost?

Ans. The cost of developing a restaurant mobile app can vary widely depending on factors such as features, complexity, and development team location. Generally, basic apps with essential features can cost between ₹1,50,000 and ₹5,90,000, while more advanced apps for multinational chains can cost around $20,000-40,000.

Q. Is there an app to pick restaurants?

Ans. Yes, there are several popular apps like Zomato, Swiggy, and Uber Eats that allow you to search for restaurants, read reviews, and order food online.

Q. Should I build a mobile app for my restaurant business?

Ans. If you want to enhance customer convenience, increase your online presence, and boost your business, a mobile app can be a valuable investment. It allows you to connect directly with your customers, offer exclusive promotions, and provide a seamless ordering and delivery experience.