In recent years, mobile apps have empowered the restaurant economy. This is not astonishing considering that mobile apps have penetrated every sector now; restaurants seem quite obvious. Restaurants can offer delivery, takeaway, dine-in, reward offers, and more with an app.
In 2020, dine-in mobile ordering has been chiefly essential due to the need for contactless service to adhere to Covid-19 norms. Sadly several independent restaurants & takeaways count on 3rd-party apps to render some of the above features. However, despite being convenient, these products have significant drawbacks. The most obvious one is the cost. Some platforms charge up to 30% on every order, resulting in huge losses over time.
Moreover, restaurants using these services have no control over branding or the delivery experience. The user's loyalty stays with the 3rd party app, not the restaurant that has worked hard to establish long-term relationships with users.
The good news is that it is easy & affordable for sole restaurants or small chains to make a restaurant app. This blog will look at 7 restaurant app examples from both worldwide chains & independent restaurants that you can use as inspiration while mobile application development.
7 Restaurant Mobile App Instances
Nando's: Easy Takeaway
Nando's has an app with several features that users love. The takeaway ordering function is a critical feature. Users can use the app to find the closest Nando's restaurant & place an order straight from their phone. There's no need to call the diner. This is fantastic for users who can order at their convenient time & pick it up when they reach the restaurant.
Nandos has the advantage of boosting sales as they no longer rely on restaurant capacity as people can buy food or take it away. Another cool thing to like is the download incentive. The diner offers a free appetizer to people who install the app. This feature leads to more installs, and once the app is on a user's phone, they're more likely to use it in the future.
Shake Shack: Mobile-Order-Ahead
The shake shack app renders users with an excellent mobile restaurant experience. This app allows users to order food before they reach the diner, reducing their wait time. It's an apt feature for people with a confined lunch break or those who want to get food before going somewhere else.
Users can browse the whole menu within the app, choose what they would like to eat and when they want to pick up the order, and then pay from their mobile.
Other features make repeat ordering easy. For instance, users create accounts & save info such as favorite meals & payment details.
Pizza Express: Table Booking
The Pizza Express app is an excellent instance of how a dine-in restaurant can benefit from a mobile app, even when it doesn't want to offer takeaway service. The key feature is the ability to book a table at the restaurant. Users can do this straight in the Pizza Express app within 60 seconds. This decreases the staff's burden to respond to customer booking calls regularly.
The app also renders complete access to the diner's menu, letting users decide what they want to eat beforehand.
Domino's: Independent Delivery
This is one of the most famous apps on Google Play Store & App Store. Users surf the diner's full menu and then order & pay for meals straight from their mobiles. The closest Domino's chain then delivers the pizza to the customer. This feature simply means that Domino's doesn't rely on 3rd-party delivery apps. Since they have to pay for drivers, the high volume of deliveries is a cost-effective option.
An app also provides the company complete control over branding & the delivery experience, ensuring pizza always arrives as per their quality guidelines.
Outback Steakhouse: Enticing Rewards
This app renders users with easy access to rewards & offers. The main highlight of this app is its generous loyalty program. Users have to visit the diner 3 times to get 50% off on their 4th visit to the restaurant.
Several reasons to love this offer are:
- It's achievable: Once customers have visited the restaurant, they only have to go 2 more times to earn their reward.
- It's generous: A 50% discount is a massive saving.
- It doesn't cost the diner a lot: The $20 maximum saving stops diners from exploiting the offer by eating with an enormous group to get a whopping discount.
- It's simple to understand: There are no points to gather or intricate conditions- simply visit the diner 3 times to get a reward.
The reward offer is not the only way of saving in this app. Users even have access to a rotating selection of exclusive offers & coupons that help them save bucks while motivating them to dine out.
Raglan Road: Contactless Table Service
This is an Irish bar that sells a range of pub food. This app has 3 main users. The first is to render table service to users. They order food & drinks from their mobile, and servers bring it to the table.
This is a helpful feature to have at any time, but mainly during the pandemic.
The app allows the bar to deliver a safe eating environment. It enables users to order takeaway. They can surf the whole menu & put in an order straight from their mobile. Users decide when they want to pick up the food & choose to pay by card or card on delivery.
Finally, the pub allows users to book tables beforehand. This is another feature useful at any time and essential during the COVID-19 when pubs are operating at less capacity.
The Chippy Antrim: Takeaway & Delivery
This is a highly rated fish & chips diner. The app is mainly used to provide a takeaway service to its loyal customers.
Users can surf the whole menu on their mobiles & then make an order. They can choose the time for picking it. To guarantee that the diner never gets overbooked, buyers must choose a time slot from a drop-down menu. When a specific time slot has several orders, users select a different one.
The Chippy even offers home delivery via the app. By using its platform, the diner doesn't have to pay 3rd-party app fees.
The reward offer is another robust feature. This is an effective method to motivate current users to keep ordering from the business.
The Endnote
Hyperlink Infosystem makes it easy to develop a fantastic mobile app with the features mentioned above at an affordable rate. If you have a diner business, building your app is essential these days to sustain the cut-throat competition and to save yourself from paying hefty fees to 3rd-party apps. Best restaurant mobile apps by
top restaurant app development companies are the key to your successful business; if in doubt, connect with us, and we shall help you out.