Case study: MealMap

Restaurants can assign specific time slots to different dishes, which simplifies kitchen prep and staffing and makes stock management more predictable. Time slots can be set at granular level (day/week) to accommodate different business models. 

A visual planner that highlights available dishes in each time slot makes it easier to spot gaps and plan stock orders, food prep and staffing.
Customers are only shown items that match their chosen delivery time and order type. Any changes dynamically updates eligible dishes. 

Restaurant and food type searches are also updated in real-time to reflect availability at the time of the customer’s search. Global filters help customers to find dishes quickly across categories without wading through unavailable items.

We built a light-weight responsive UI with lean custom components,  incremental rendering, capped memory use, and optimised image assets. An offline-tolerant sync queue with automatic retries, request debouncing, and compact payloads make sure that no orders are lost, even when the network is down. 

We integrated thermal printers using robust encoding and font fallbacks to support special Chinese characters. Print templates include order line items, store details, timestamps, and payment type, so tickets are actionable at a glance. The configured number of copies are automatically printed when an order is accepted.

Kitchen flows are tracked via Pending, Preparing, Scheduled, and Completed queues, with Accept and Decline overrides. Orders are further colour-coded to assist prioritisation. Managers can review total orders, accepted or declined volume, cancellations, total sales, and cash versus card breakdowns for a given date.

The custom UX caters for kitchen environments via oversized touch points, confirmation modals, and repetitive audio alerts that persist until acknowledged. This can be further streamlined with auto-accept options and default print-copy settings.

Streamlined order flows promote kitchen accuracy and speed via:

• Support for online and offline payments.
• Clear structured order layouts. 
• Intuitive interface to accept, cancel, refund or mark for delivery or collection. 
• Auto-accept option for high-volume restaurants.

Orders are automatically grouped into status groups (pending, in progress, etc.) that can be further sorted with search filters such as customer name, order type or time and date.

Platform fees can be configured at granular level by setting restaurant specific processing or ancillary fees. Billing is kept transparent with a clear breakdown of fees, discounts and payment methods.

A flexible promotions engine allows restaurants to stack multiple conditions inside a promotion:

• Percentage or fixed-amount discounts with start and end dates, specific hours, and weekday repeat rules. 
• Minimum basket thresholds and order type (delivery/collection) limitations.
• Customer segment eligibility using buyer attributes, e.g. account creation date or first-order status. 
• Redemptions can be limited per buyer or by platform-wide totals. 
• Promotions can be limited to specific products or categories, e.g. main courses only.
• Discounts can be paused, deleted, combined with or isolated from promotion groups via simple toggles

Promotions are either automatically applied at checkout or customers can provide a manual discount code. Each discount is clearly associated with a line item at checkout with eligibility notes or failure reasons.

Loyalty rewards that mirror discount rules for timing, order type, and product range can be triggered automatically after a set number of orders or amount spent. 

Non-technical staff can manage and monitor all promotions in real-time via a simple console that includes pre-built validation parameters to prevent errors. This is possible due to the sophisticated technical architecture that runs in the background: 

• A normalised schema captures conditions for time slots, basket items, customer type, and catalogue. The promotion engine evaluates these rules deterministically at quote time for speed and consistency.
• Pricing recalculates at key events (e.g. item addition) which keeps the UI accurate without page reloads.
• Idempotency – discounts or loyalty rewards are applied once per qualifying context, with audit trails that simplify reconciliation. 
• Lightweight predicates and indexed lookups keep evaluation fast at scale, even during peak hours

Circular delivery zones at any point on the map, which account for geographical constraints like one-way traffic, ensure that fees and ETAs reflect actual drive times. When multiple zones overlap the system automatically selects the lowest fee.

A delivery calculator allows customers to check eligibility, fee, and ETA before they order. Fees, minimum order thresholds, and time estimates are tied to zone rules and update instantly when a customer edits their address or a restaurant changes its parameters. 

Pinpoint deliveries are supported by accurate geocoding via Google Location API and customer delivery instructions like gate codes.

An interactive list and map that show zone ranges, delivery statuses, fees, and ETAs can be controlled from a single screen.

Customers can use intuitive filters for detailed search results that highlight delivery fees, estimated delivery/collection times, discount offers, and minimum order thresholds. They can also favourite restaurants to make repeat orders even quicker.

Multiple parameters – shop hours, menu schedules, delivery type, customer location – are calculated at speed over granular 15-minute delivery/collection slots.

Real-time cart validation ensures that any changes in availability or pricing while the customer is browsing are immediately flagged, with clear options to proceed with the order.

Under the hood, event driven checks with lightweight UI prompts keep carts consistent without full page reloads. Validation is scoped per item and recalculated on each cart update, so the experience feels fast and trustworthy.

Carts persist in user accounts and browser sessions.  A customer can start an order on mobile, refine options on desktop, and check out later without losing progress. Secure server side storage with session handoff ensures continuity across devices and channels, while keeping sensitive data secure.

Carts are tied to individual restaurants to prevent mixed orders and split fulfillment issues. Attempts to add an item from another restaurant triggers a prompt for a separate cart. This reduces operational errors and makes delivery timing more reliable.