image
ractangle
case study

Food to Go Order App Development

Hospitality

  • Mobile Development
  • Cloud Solutions

Building a cross-platform food-to-go ordering solution from scratch, ahead of market demand. Pioneering online food ordering app development before takeout apps became mainstream. Validating React Native as a production-ready technology while delivering a seamless experience across Android and iOS. Designing two interconnected applications (one for consumers and one for restaurant staff) to streamline order flow and eliminate unnecessary wait times. Structuring the product to scale with a growing user base and evolving restaurant needs without compromising speed or reliability.

client

Acropolium

  • image Czech Republic
  • image 100+ employees

Internal R&D project - Garson (garson.co)

Food to Go Order App Development

request background

Pre-Ordering App Built Before the Market Knew It Needed One

Back in 2013, Acropolium's internal R&D team identified a gap in the market: customers were losing valuable time waiting for food they could have ordered in advance. As an internal R&D food ordering app project, Garson was born. It was a vision for a smarter, faster takeout experience built entirely in-house.

At the time, restaurant-facing digital tools were limited to clunky POS systems, and consumer-facing mobile options barely existed. Mobile ordering was largely uncharted territory. The team set out to build an app for ordering food at restaurant that let customers browse menus, place orders ahead of time, and pick up their meals without a moment's delay.

The project carried two missions simultaneously – bring a genuinely useful product to market, and test React Native before recommending it to future clients. Building Garson meant solving real problems for both diners and restaurant operators from day one.

challenge

No Competitors and No Playbook

After thorough market research in 2013, the team confirmed what they suspected. There were simply no established apps for pre-ordering food to go. We had no competitors to learn from. Every decision, from UX flows to backend architecture, had to be made from first principles.

Figuring out how to create a food ordering app that was intuitive for everyday users, while also meeting the operational needs of busy restaurant staff, required careful thinking through both sides. The consumer experience needed to be frictionless. The restaurant side needed to be reliable, which means receiving orders accurately, updating statuses instantly, and handling peak-hour surges without breaking.

Layered on top was a calculated technology bet. React Native was new, largely untested in production environments, and lacked the community support it has today. The team chose to pursue food ordering mobile app development on this framework deliberately, treating Garson as a live testing ground. Understanding React Native's limits and strengths was just as important as shipping the product. The insights gathered here would shape technology recommendations for years to come.

goals

  1. Deliver a genuinely useful food ordering app for restaurants and everyday users.
  2. Validate React Native as a production-ready framework.
  3. Establish a shared codebase that could grow without accumulating technical debt.
  4. Design reliable solutions for real-world network conditions.
  5. Build a food ordering product that could be iterated on after launch.

solution

Simplifying Client Lives with 2 Purposeful Applications

  • image React Native, PHP, Laravel, MariaDB
  • image 1+ years
  • image 5 specialists

The Acropolium team approached this as a food ordering app development company building for the long term – not just shipping an MVP, but establishing a reliable, scalable system from the ground up.

The result was two interconnected applications. The first, built on React Native, serves as the customer-facing mobile app. Available on both Android and iOS, it lets users browse menus, place orders at their convenience, and pick up meals without waiting. The interface was fast, clean, and intuitive.

The second application, built on Ionic, acts as a dedicated food ordering app for restaurants. It receives incoming orders, fires push notifications on order status, and surfaces individual client statistics alongside aggregate order data, giving operators the visibility they need to run a smooth service.

Role-based access, real-time order syncing, and a modular backend ensured the custom food ordering app could grow alongside demand. Both platforms were documented thoroughly, fulfilling Acropolium's parallel goal of understanding React Native inside and out, and translating every hard-won lesson into sharper mobile expertise for future engagements.

outcome

Tangible Results That Proved the Concept in the Real World

  • 90% reduction in customer wait times, turning food pickup into a genuinely seamless experience from the moment an order was placed.
  • 30% increase in restaurant profit, achieved without paying third-party commissions.
  • 55% growth in new customer acquisition, driven by word-of-mouth around a faster, more convenient way to order.
  • 40% reduction in personnel costs, freeing staff from manual order intake to focus on preparation and service quality instead.
  • 30% increase in profit without paying any commission
  • 55% new customers increased
  • 40% reduced personnel costs
cta

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