A Complete Guide to Restaurant App Development (Steps + Cost)

51.5% of the time, customers want their food served from the restaurant’s own app. This fact alone proves that your restaurant needs an app. But what options do you have for restaurant app development? There are so many restaurant app ideas and for each, you need to follow a different development process.

Therefore, in this guide, we will make a step-by-step breakdown of the mobile app development process and then explore unique app ideas. So, let’s get started without further delay.

Advantages to Build Restaurant App

Indeed, any restaurant owner aspires to have a well-organized smartphone app and a strong online presence in order to draw a large number of customers in a short period of time.

Here are the top advantages of using information technology in the food industry.

1. Smooth Customer Experience

   First and foremost, consumers can order food from their favorite restaurants without trouble. Second, consumers can have flexibility in their orders, not just in terms of food selection, but also in terms of delivery timing. After this, consumers are kept updated during the operation and can follow the location of their food using a GPS chart viewed on their mobile device. In general, this simple and pleasant consumer service has resulted in increased customer retention, sales, and revenue.

2. Build loyalty

   Customer loyalty is crucial to a restaurant’s success. However, high-quality food and exceptional customer service are rarely enough to earn, maintain, and grow customer loyalty. Customers hope to be compensated with their continued support. Enable your guests to gain points for unique acts, which they can then track and redeem for things like free menu items.

3. Personalization

   If your users like less salt in the diet or more condiments to mix it up to their liking, on-demand food apps give you a lot of flexibility in customizing their meals. They may also choose restaurants with the quickest delivery times and provide special orders to the delivery agent, such as not ringing the doorbell or bringing extra cutlery. Customers will get a much more customized restaurant experience with on-demand food applications than they do with conventional restaurant delivery.

4. Better Service

   While developing a restaurant finder app for your restaurant is primarily focused on the customer and their experiences, it can also help with the on-site operation… as well as the feedback that supports it.

   In case of rush hours, instead of waiting for in-shop fulfillment, your staff can see a new order as soon as it comes in, put it together, price it, and prepare it for immediate carryout. Your carry-out customers would only spend a few moments in your shop and are happily on their way, clearing out your small standing dining area for other carry-out customers and your traditional customers waiting for seating.

5. Better Payment Processing

   Customers and restaurants alike benefit from the ease that mobile payments bring. Customers will do payment online for their orders in whatever manner they choose directly via the app. In the case of restaurants, processing purchases directly from the restaurant smartphone app frees up staff to focus on more important activities, allowing them to execute more orders and increasing efficiency.

6. Location-Based Marketing

   This is a brand-new feature that will help you improve your restaurant’s revenue. This technology is used by Apple’s iBeacon. It’s simply a small gadget that sends a push notification to a customer who is within walking distance of your restaurants. You can tempt and lure your clients in this way by giving them offers they can’t resist.

   You may also rely on a person’s GPS settings to tell you where they are and send out detailed offer information if you have several locations. You may also like to read in detail about what is a location-based app and how it works.

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How to Make a Restaurant App [Step-By-Step]

Restaurant mobile app development is a multi-step project that involves more than just coding. Before you can get your hands on a ready-to-use restaurant ordering app, you’ll need to go through a set of steps.

Here is the detailed step-by-step breakdown.

MVP Features for Restaurant App Development

Now that you’ve made the wise decision to create a restaurant food ordering app, the next step is to consider what features to have. The purpose MVP (Minimum Viable Product) development may vary from person to person like want to enter the market with a small budget, minimizing the errors, collect the maximum feedback and improve the product for future use, finding the exact audience, etc.

We’ve assembled a list of the top MVP features that any restaurant app should provide in order to be popular with customers.

1. Menu Screens

   Any online food ordering app must have this functionality. This method should show how dishes look like, include a list of ingredients, and, if possible, include a list of customization options. In short, a clean and interactive menu that encourages users to order food online.

   So, if you are developing a restaurant app, you must consider designing and optimizing an enticing and entertaining menu. High-quality images and an order button that enables users to order food directly from the menu should be included in this critical part of the user interface.

2. Online Orders

   People are mostly short on time, which is why they often use food restaurant applications to place orders or place pre-orders. The Starbucks application has successfully introduced this function. Customers who put pre-orders electronically stop waiting in queues to place and collect their orders. This is why, in today’s world, the online food ordering feature is a must-have.

3. Table Reservations

   Even if your restaurant is small, it can be so popular that walk-in customers have difficulty finding a seat. Perhaps the restaurant may be a high-end establishment that does not accept walk-ins and instead allows table booking.

   Regardless of the case, customers should be able to make restaurant reservations using the restaurant’s mobile app. This reduces customer frustration, which is almost often exacerbated by long waits for a table and allows them to plan their evening to perfection.

4. Nearby Restaurants

   For a restaurant with many locations, this function is very helpful. Consider using this if you plan to build a high-quality restaurant app. You may use geolocation to direct tourists to the nearest location or invite them to visit your location if they are in the area.

5. Social Media Interaction

   Social networking has been inextricably tied to our lives. As a result, it should be a requirement of every restaurant plan. Create a restaurant app with social media integration, since this is one way to allow for easy registration inside the app. Enable customers to share photographs of their meals on social media and leave reviews so that you can capitalize on the power of social media marketing and word-of-mouth to expand your business.

6. Push Notifications

   These alerts may be used for a variety of purposes. You may notify customers to let them know about upcoming activities, promotional deals, and discounts, for example. These would serve to remind them of your restaurants and encourage them to return more often.

7. Loyalty Program

   Loyal customers who have been patient for a long time deserve special treatment. The loyalty programs are the best ways to treat them with vouchers, bonuses, and exclusive sales to make them feel special. Since they still have their smartphones with them, they will use the incentives as a part of loyalty programs if they visit your establishment.

Advanced Features for Restaurant App Development

If you want to make a unique restaurant application, the most fascinating and novel features that will work in the development of a custom restaurant app are described below.

1. In-App Messages

   What if you had anyone available to answer your customers’ questions through the app? There’s no reason to recruit a full-time employee because we have Rasa chatbots. Artificial intelligence has allowed solutions to learn how to answer various questions, considering the fact that it is a relatively recent technology in the restaurant industry. Although still new to the restaurant industry, they bring a layer of personalization that will make you stand out.

2. Gamification

   Gamification is another functionality in mobile devices quickly becoming common in many restaurant ordering applications. Its psychological nature is a significant factor in its development.

   Gamification basically means that the restaurant food application employs game mechanics to compensate users for completing tasks. So, for your restaurant application, you must set challenges for your app’s users to increase interaction.

3. Influencer Marketing

   Influencer marketing is unquestionably at an all-time peak. And you can take advantage of it in order to expand your multi-restaurant delivery business.

   What exactly is influencer marketing, though? It’s a natural continuation of word-of-mouth marketing. The concept is that an influencer’s trusted fans would translate into revenue.

   Another rising trend in influencer marketing is micro-influencers. Micro-influencers are people who have a limited number of fans (few thousand). Many people assume that micro-influencers are more powerful because their relationships with their followers are more trustworthy.

4. Customer Feedback Portal

   Customer feedback is the easiest and most powerful method for gathering information to help you improve the app. To stay ahead of the competition, you must check and make appropriate updates to the app on a regular basis.

   Furthermore, who else than the consumers themselves to review and suggest changes? You can have a feedback mechanism that encourages the users to post their views and it allows you to learn about the needs of your clients, which you can then address later to improve and provide a seamless user experience.

5. Restaurant Staff Management

   This function is essential in order to keep track of restaurant workers and boost productivity. The restaurant would not be overworked or underworked as a result of this. You can also keep track of the employees’ current success.

   You can make the requisite changes depending on the staff’s observations. It increases efficiency and flexibility, ensuring that the right number of employees are present to finish the job on time.

6. Advocacy Rewards

   Referral programs and rewards, also known as advocacy, are a relatively recent app functionality. They’ve traditionally been seen in B2B companies, where sales are less common than in B2C. With our mobile apps solutions, it’s now possible to automate activism promotions due to technical advances.

   While customer trust in brands, newspapers, and journalists is eroding, customer advocacy is becoming more critical. All modes of marketing convert at the minimum rate, but word-of-mouth converts at the highest rate.

7. Geo-Targeting Tech

   Finally, there’s geo-targeting. Businesses will use this technology to reach customers depending on their position and engage with them in real-time. When people sign up for location-based services, advertisers will send them discounts and coupons when they’re in the shop, or even when they’re near one.

Making an app is important in today’s digital age, but do you know what app ideas for startups are successful in the food industry? Here’s the list of best app ideas that will change the world.

How Much Does It Cost to Build a Restaurant App?

Depending on the functionalities and features you are looking to add to your restaurant’s online ordering app, the cost of a restaurant mobile app would come out to $20,000 to $110,000.

These costs consist of customized mobile app design, development of both Android or iOS versions, app testing, and final launch.

For a detailed breakdown of restaurant app development cost, refer to the below table.

Conclusion

The market share of restaurant-related applications is one of the fastest-growing markets. Nobody would argue that having a smartphone app for restaurant automation is a godsend. It not only inspires buyers to examine your food but also allows your restaurant to retain a clear brand awareness in the minds of restaurant customers.

Also, with the growing demand for restaurant applications, a large number of restaurant app manufacturers are now offering world-class app design services for their hotel business. If you’re thinking of having one, please don’t hesitate to write to us. We are a professional mobile app development company in Toronto. Our experts will guide you throughout the app development process. For more queries, contact us at any time.