Chop Asap
The challenge
Local restaurants had no affordable, easy way to list their menus and accept mobile orders. Customers had no single platform to discover nearby restaurants and place orders from their phones.
What we did
We built a dual-sided mobile platform where restaurant owners onboard in minutes and manage menus and orders in real-time, while customers enjoy a seamless browse-to-checkout experience with live order tracking.
Overview
Chop Asap is a mobile food-ordering platform that connects hungry customers with local restaurants. Restaurant owners list their menus, manage availability, and receive orders in real-time. Customers discover nearby food, place orders, and track delivery — all from a single app.
The Problem
Local restaurants — particularly in fast-growing cities — are losing business to large chains that can afford sophisticated digital infrastructure. Most small restaurants still take orders over the phone or rely on expensive third-party aggregators charging up to 30% commission per order.
Customers had no single destination to discover what local restaurants near them were offering. Discovery was fragmented across social media, word of mouth, and old-fashioned walk-ins.
Our Approach
We designed the platform with two distinct but deeply integrated experiences:
Restaurant owner flow
- Quick onboarding: owners create a menu, add photos, and go live in under 15 minutes
- A live dashboard for managing orders, updating item availability, and viewing daily summaries
- Push notifications for new orders with one-tap accept/reject
Customer flow
- Location-aware restaurant discovery with category filters (e.g. grills, local dishes, drinks)
- Cart management with order customization and special instructions
- Real-time order status tracking from kitchen to delivery
- Secure payment via Stripe with saved cards for repeat orders
Key Features
- Dual-role app — one codebase, two clean experiences for owners and customers
- Real-time order sync — Firebase listeners ensure order status updates instantly across both sides
- Menu management — owners toggle item availability on the fly without republishing
- Stripe integration — PCI-compliant card processing with support for saved payment methods
- Push notifications — instant alerts for new orders (owner) and status changes (customer)
Tech Stack
The app is built on React Native with Expo for cross-platform delivery. The backend is a Node.js REST API backed by PostgreSQL for structured data and Firebase Realtime Database for live order state. Stripe handles all payment processing.
Results
Chop Asap launched with an initial cohort of restaurants and quickly grew into a reliable ordering platform for both sides of the market. Restaurant owners reported meaningful increases in order volume without the high commission rates of incumbent platforms.
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