Food Delivery Platform for Metro Bites Collective
We built a white-label food delivery app that helped 12 independent restaurants escape 30% marketplace commissions — attracting 18,000 users and averaging 23-minute delivery times within 90 days of launch.
The Challenge
Metro Bites Collective was a group of 12 independently owned restaurants in a mid-size metro area, ranging from a Vietnamese pho shop to an upscale burger joint. Together they were paying an average of $35,000 per month in commissions to DoorDash and UberEats — roughly 28-30% of every delivery order. On top of the financial burden, they had zero control over the customer experience: no branding, no direct customer data, and no way to run promotions outside the marketplace's rules.
The restaurants formed a cooperative to fund a shared delivery platform. The technical requirements were ambitious: a consumer-facing app with multi-restaurant ordering, real-time GPS tracking, a driver management system, restaurant-side order tablets, and a shared fleet of 15 delivery drivers. The platform needed to handle peak loads of 200+ simultaneous orders during Friday dinner service across all 12 restaurants.
Previous quotes from two agencies came in at $250K+ with 8-month timelines. The cooperative's budget was $140K with a hard launch deadline tied to the summer dining season.
Our Solution
We built a three-app ecosystem: a consumer app (React Native, iOS/Android), a restaurant management tablet app, and a driver app — all connected through a Node.js real-time backend. The consumer app features multi-restaurant cart capability (order from 2-3 restaurants in a single checkout), real-time order tracking with GPS, and a loyalty points system shared across all cooperative members.
The restaurant tablet app receives orders with audio alerts, shows estimated prep times, and communicates kitchen status to the dispatch system. When an order is 5 minutes from ready, the system automatically assigns the nearest available driver and calculates the optimal pickup route. The driver app shows navigation, order details, and delivery instructions with one-swipe status updates.
The dispatch algorithm was the technical centerpiece. It considers driver proximity, restaurant prep time estimates, order batching opportunities (multiple pickups from nearby restaurants), and traffic conditions to minimize delivery times. Socket.io maintains persistent connections between all three apps for real-time status updates with sub-second latency.
Implementation Process
1
Platform Architecture(3 weeks)
Designed the three-app system, dispatch algorithm, and real-time communication layer. Created UI wireframes for all three interfaces and validated with restaurant owners.
2
Backend & Real-Time(5 weeks)
Built the Node.js API, WebSocket infrastructure, driver dispatch algorithm, Stripe Connect payment splitting, and restaurant onboarding system.
3
Mobile Apps(6 weeks)
Developed the consumer app, restaurant tablet app, and driver app in React Native. Integrated Google Maps, push notifications, and real-time tracking.
4
Testing & Launch(4 weeks)
Load-tested with simulated 200-order peaks, beta-launched with 3 restaurants, iterated on driver UX, then rolled out to all 12 restaurants over 2 weeks.
Results
Metro Bites launched during the first week of summer and grew entirely through local marketing — each restaurant promoted the app to their existing customers with a $5 first-order discount funded by the cooperative.
18,000
Users in 90 days
4,200 active weekly users by month 3
23 min
Avg delivery time
Comparable to DoorDash (26 min) despite smaller fleet
$420K
Commission savings (Year 1)
Zero marketplace fees — only payment processing costs
4.6★
App Store rating
Based on 890 reviews across iOS and Android
73%
Repeat order rate
Loyalty program drives above-industry retention
Technology Stack
R
React Native
Consumer, restaurant, and driver apps (iOS + Android)
N
Node.js
API server and real-time dispatch engine
S
Socket.io
Real-time communication between all three apps
P
PostgreSQL 16
Orders, users, restaurants, and analytics data
R
Redis
Session management, caching, and driver location tracking
S
Stripe Connect
Payment processing with automatic splits to restaurants
Ready to Start?
No commitments. Tell us what you need and we'll tell you how we'd solve it.
“We went from paying DoorDash $35K a month to owning our customer relationships and keeping all the margin. The app paid for itself in 4 months.”
— Cooperative Board Chair, Metro Bites Collective
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