Updated Date: Sep 14, 2023 
Almost every industry has gone through a digital revolution in recent times. And, the restaurant sector has no exemption in this transformation.
Just a few decades back, shiny cash counters were at the heart of the cafes and restaurants. After that, restaurant POS systems came into action to cut costs and bring customer service to the best. As a next move, to stay connected with customers, restaurants carved a connection with social media and websites.
And, as a checkmate, restaurant apps popped up like mushrooms to flood into the smart device of the people. As a result, creating your own restaurant apps will have numerous things to bring to the table. Currently, the restaurant app market is one of the most trending things among consumers. According to research, it is expected that the online food ordering and delivery segment alone will reach $365 billion.
So, this represents the opportunity to create a restaurant app for the owner or ones who are new in this field. In this article, we will cover how to go for restaurant mobile app development, different types of restaurant apps & websites, the benefits of it, etc.
Accordingly, we will begin with why you need to create a restaurant app.
Reasons That Shows The Dominance To Create a Restaurant App
Before heading towards any type of discussion, we recommend you go through the below-given infographic that shows some fantastic facts and figures for the scenario when a local restaurant goes digital.
Now you have got some idea of the consequences of restaurant app development. Let’s move forward with some essential reasons and benefits for eRestaurant solutions.
Customer Loyalty
Be it about online or offline services; customer experience always matters the most to gain popularity and success. You can enable your customers with so many rapid services to attract them towards your restaurant or cafe. In fact, many restaurant owners have agreed that they observed an increase in the number of customers by 60% after creating a restaurant app.
Never Ignore Millennials
Always remember disregarding the millennials will backfire on so many of your ultimate goals. When it is about food or hangouts, they work as saviours. Millennials are always adventurous who make the most use of digitization for almost everything. They are known as tech-savvy who keep exploring offers, services, menus, and so on via phone. We can say that they are one of the best reasons to create a restaurant website or app.
Decision Making is Biased
So, tell us one thing – how do you find an eatery or cafe in an unknown area? You need some guidance, right?
Now, do you know that you can bring such hungry tourists to your app with just a few steps? Yes, you read it right! Restaurant mobile app developers – with the integration of iBeacon technology, can help to convert your passers-by to the ultimate customers. Send the push notification to the passers-by in the 50-meter radius, and – Voila! You’ve gained the customers. You can call it one type of restaurant app (in the detailed discussion given below).
Time is Money
The only dearth that most of us face today is time. Although, developing a mobile app for restaurant ordering will save time and increase the ROI of your food business. The only order you need to follow for online ordering is pick-order-pay. It is one of the trending things that is holding in the digital restaurant world.
Brand Loyalty & Increasing ROI
What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of your restaurant? Enhancing brand loyalty & ROI of the business – but how?
Website and mobile app development for restaurants is an ideal answer for both scenarios as mentioned above. You can build your brand by connecting with customers and gaining their attention to your restaurant. This can be made simple by creating a digital presence.
Secondly, through the application, you can share custom notifications to your users about the latest offers, promo codes, special evenings, and so on.
Read more about: Mobile App Clone Solutions
Effective Ways of Payment Procedures
Online payment is adopted by more than 80% of the customers in today’s time. It has come into action, especially after the pandemic.
Enabling your customers to make the payment through your restaurant app will let them have more convenience and loyalty in you. This gives you an ease of flow for all the processes of your restaurant. And while paying, you can even ask them to share valuable feedback for your services and food quality.
In this way, you can know about the customer behaviour and accordingly make changes in your services. It is one of the key benefits to create a restaurant app.
We’ve given you a complete overview of the importance of creating a restaurant app. Consequently, the next part is about various stamps of restaurant apps. So let’s nose-dive into it.
Types of Restaurant Apps
Basically, there are six main types out of which you can choose to build a restaurant app for your business. There are so many, but here we’ve mentioned those who actually prove beneficial for your eatery.
Table Reservation/Booking App
Enable your customers to reserve a table at their time and convenience. You can build a standalone app for table reservations or include it as one of your custom restaurant app development features.
To bring your attention to a point – about 70% of the people book a table before visiting a restaurant. Therefore, it is one of the key points to take into consideration for enhancing the user experience.
Ordering & Delivery App
After the pandemic, there is a high demand for online food delivery businesses. Develop a restaurant order app, and let your consumer order their favourite food at any given time. There are two categories for developing a restaurant app for online order and delivery.
- Build a standalone app for your restaurant.
- Aggregates and on-demand delivery apps like UberEats, GrubHub and so on.
Restaurant Locator App
Tourists are always in search of a local restaurant. This type of restaurant app enables users to navigate through some of the popular restaurants in the nearby area. The best example of such an app is Restaurant Finder.
When this solution is combined with geofencing, it becomes more potent for retaining the customers as well as finding new ones.
Read more: Food Delivery App Clone
A Restaurant Menu App
Menus have always been at the core of any restaurant. However, after the pandemic, a digital significance is even observed in the restaurant menu cards. Create your orders through your smartphones by scanning the QR code or via an app.
Digital menus come with appealing and attractive designs that draw the attention of the users. Therefore, we recommend you to have an alluring restaurant app design if you’re going for such an app type.
Restaurant Promotional & Loyalty Program App
Be it any industry, marketing is the kernel part of increasing the ROI and getting success. In the chaos of modern life, people always look for attractive offers that save them a few bucks or enhance their experience.
You can take advantage of both these situations and create a restaurant app. Then, whenever it comes to choose the one eatery from the two best ones, the user will go for the one that comes with more offers and discounts.
Again, you can build a special app for such promotional and loyalty programs or add it as a feature in your restaurant app development.
A Restaurant Review App
You can call this type of app a unique directory that contains information about the restaurants, like its reviews, ambience, pictures, price, type of food, and so on. If you’re on the verge of a startup in this sector, then this could be one of the lucrative ideas you can opt for.
The ideal example of such an app you can consider is the Yelp app.
So, now you know about the types of restaurant apps that users always look for. As a subsequent move, the very next question coming to your mind will be the restaurant app development process.
Let us share with you an ideal process for the same.
How to Create a Restaurant App? (A Step by Step Process)
A restaurant app or website works as a front face for your eatery. Hence, you shouldn’t compromise a single thing in your restaurant app development. Just like any other app development, creating a mobile app for a restaurant needs solid expertise and a tech team.
An app development company that has already created a restaurant app is one of the ideal options that you can choose for your app development. As they’ve hands-on experience to build such platforms and are aware of this niche.
Although, not only software development companies, there are so many aspects that you need to scrutinize to save time and money. After deep research and analysis, we’ve built a standard protocol (roadmap) to create a restaurant app and website.
A seven-step process to follow for the development of a restaurant app,
Research and Track Down the Problem
The first and foremost step that you need to take is to lead market analysis and check out the problems faced by people. Learn about your target audience, and check out the actual service they want for your restaurant.
This will help you to choose the right type of restaurant app for your eatery. To make sure that your app encounters customers’ needs, you need to identify the sore points and then build a restaurant app.
Think on Logic & Business Plan
At this moment, all the planning should take place. Then, by applying various logic, develop a business plan that helps you to generate revenue from your restaurant app. The best thing you can do is either build your own business model or follow popular apps like UberEats, DoorDash or Grubhub business model.
Moreover, when you have comprehensive specifications and requirements for your mobile app, you can clearly explain your development team. In short, set a business goal and platform requirements to take it for the final execution.
Search for The Best Software Development Company
As we’ve already mentioned above, finding an appropriate app development company is essential for the perfect execution of your app idea. Thus, go for a company that has the experience and already created a restaurant app.
Visualize the Concept & Think on App Design
An app appearance always impacts the user experience of a client. Therefore, once you are done with the documentation part of mobile app restaurant app development, it’s time to visualize your app’s UI/UX.
Make sure that you don’t compromise anything in the app design. It is advisable to first create a prototype, then go for the final mobile app design services.
Build a Restaurant App & Test
So, it’s time to implement all the features and functionalities to develop a bespoke restaurant app. A core thing to keep in mind for the success of an app is its quality assurance. Always make sure that each feature of your restaurant app is thoroughly built and tested by the restaurant app developer.
App Launch with Pre & Post Marketing
Finally, your restaurant app is ready for its final launch. You need to make a strategy for pre as well as post-marketing. We would suggest you launch your app during any upcoming events in your area or at the time of the festival. This will give an extra boost to your restaurant application.
Keep Updating with New Features
Users may always be looking for new features and functionalities; thus, you need to keep updating your application in some time phases. We would recommend that in the initial phase, go for an app with MVP features, and then keep adding the new features and functionalities.
This will help you to keep customers engaged with your app, and also gain new customers.
Adding more to this process, we’ve made a list of some crucial features that are consequential to add to a restaurant app development.
Core Features of Restaurant App
Below, you will find some prime features to include in your restaurant app. These features are researched based on the current trends and going through some of the most popular restaurant apps. Additionally, a few of them are based on our recent projects.
Menu
A directory of foods with pricing and rapid information is the significance of any restaurant. In addition, you have a myriad of options to digital showcase a menu.
Online Ordering
Placing an online order only takes 45 secs to 1 min, and it is the most convenient way to process an order. Therefore, you can reduce the waiting time and manage the bulk order without any hurdles.
Table Booking & Payment Processing
Enable your users to reserve a table for lunch/dinner via your restaurant app. Additionally, also allow them to make a payment online via 2-3 different mediums.
Push Notifications
Keep your customers reminded about the offers and events at your restaurant with the help of notifications.
Chatbots
What if someone can quickly solve the issue of your customer in the absence of your staff? An advanced-level feature that connects your customers with chatbots in terms of any query.
Geolocation Capabilities
If you’ve multiple restaurants serving in various cities, geolocation lets your customers easily find the restaurant.
Referral Rewards
To grow your customers, this is one of the most tempting features. Give some rewards on every referral to the old and new customers.
Ratings & Reviews
Getting feedback from the customers is important to improve your services and know about the customer behaviour. Hence, allow your users to share their reviews and feedback about the restaurant.
What is the Cost to Develop a Restaurant App?
When you create a restaurant app, the cost is an important factor for most of us. Are you curious to know about the cost of your restaurant app development?
Here is an answer for it.
Well, the cost of an app or website app development depends on so many factors. Below, you will find some crucial factors to check for your restaurant app development cost.
- Software development company you hire
- Region of the company
- App development platforms
- Tech stack of the app development
- Features of restaurant app
- UI/UX design of an app
- Number of payment integrations
- API integrations
- The complexity of the features
Except for the one mentioned here, there are many other elements that add to the cost for the development of a restaurant app. As per our experience and research, we’ve shared with you a cost range based on the version of the application. (Note – we’ve just shared an average cost range – it may change as a per-app requirement)
Basic Version- $10k to 12k
Standard Version- $15k to 18k
Enterprise Version- $25k to $35k
Bonus Point – If you need more information on mobile app development for restaurants, have a word with our team. We will endeavour you with sustainable and quality solutions as per your requirement.
Are You Ready To Create a Restaurant App?
Believe us; restaurant mobile app development will bring tons of fortunes for your eatery. And, based on the current pandemic situation, digitization has become a core for any business. Thus, it is ideal to go digital and recover the old and new customers with the online platform.
We’re an experienced software development company, who works as per your requirements. So share your idea with us, and our team will create a restaurant app that will definitely enhance your brand and ROI.
Let’s brainstorm your ideas together!
