Any restaurant today needs their own restaurant app. Every day, consumers are relying on their mobile devices more and more, for everything from shopping around for dinner options to ordering and making reservations.
If you want to stay current, you need to recognize this, and give your customers what they want.
Read on for a step-by-step walk through how to create a restaurant mobile app fast, affordably and with zero fuss, with MobiLoud.
How MobiLoud’s Restaurant App Builder Works
Here’s an overview of how MobiLoud helps you create restaurant apps.
MobiLoud converts any website or web app into mobile apps for Android and iOS. It’s by far the easiest way to create apps for a business that already has a mobile-optimized presence. And if you’re building from scratch, with no online presence at all, it’s still much easier and cheaper (especially in the long run) than building a mobile app from scratch.
With MobiLoud, you can go live with your restaurant app in as little as two weeks. It comes with full, hands-on support, updates and maintenance included, and lets you both build and update your mobile apps with zero coding knowledge whatsoever.
Even small restaurants can afford to launch their own mobile app this way, and enter the app stores with minimal investment and resources.
MobiLoud is perfect for:
- Restaurants who already have a website and/or ordering portal, but not a mobile app.
- Restaurants who don’t have a way for customers to order online at all.
- New restaurants or restaurants expanding to new locations/adding delivery.
Why Create an App For Your Restaurant?
Is it really that important for restaurants today to have their own app?
We say yes. Modern diners want the convenience of being able to order, reserve tables and browse menus on an app. An app adds to your restaurant’s brand, and gives you more opportunities to generate revenue.
Let’s expand on the benefits of creating your own restaurant app now.
Make it easy for your customers
A restaurant app offers a ton of convenience for diners. It provides a streamlined, efficient way for them to get information about your restaurant, browse your menu, and even order.
It’s in restaurant owners’ best interest to offer an easy, stress-free dining experience, and to make all the information about your restaurant and menu easily accessible.
Have you ever been thinking about going to a restaurant, but had trouble finding their opening hours, menu, or how to reserve a table?
You probably gave up and went somewhere else. Don’t let that happen to your restaurant.
Build brand awareness
A restaurant app helps you build a more authoritative brand, and grow your brand awareness.
Having your own iPhone and Android apps is a big signal of trust and authority. Potential customers instantly take you more seriously when they see that you have a dedicated customer app.
Apps also allow you to get listed in the Google Play and Apple App Stores. This gives you another way for people to find out about you, as well as more authority and visibility online.
Boost revenue through click & collect, home delivery
Restaurant apps make it easy for customers to buy from you in more ways than just dining in person.
You can offer your own delivery service, or allow customers to order food through the app and pick up in-store.
You could even expand into e-commerce and sell dry or bulk goods through the app. These are all great ways to scale your revenue, even if your in-person dining capacity is maxed out.
Manage table bookings more efficiently
A digital table booking system offered through the app makes it much easier and more efficient to manage reservations, and ensure you’re operating at capacity during peak times.
Building a table booking app for your restaurant helps you display, organize and fill reservation time slots, avoid double-bookings, and offer an easy way for people to cancel so you can re-fill reservations.
Get more return diners
Your app can solve the question of “where are we going to eat tonight?”
Your logo shows up on your app users’ home screen, giving you a permanent place in their thought process. Instead of being remembered as that one restaurant they went to and liked, you’ll become your customers’ go-to choice for dine in and delivery, if only because you're the first name that comes to mind.
You can also use push notifications and exclusive offers and discounts to incentivize people to come back and dine/order with you more often.
How to Build Your Own Restaurant App with MobiLoud
MobiLoud is the most effective way for restaurant owners to launch and manage their own app.
With MobiLoud you need to have a web-based app or site first, before you can launch apps. But the process after that is far easier than any other development method or app builder. And we’d argue that building for the web first is the best way to create a restaurant app, anyway.
Building and launching a restaurant is a straightforward 5-step process:
- Create an online ordering system
- Get in touch with us
- Preview and customize the look of your app
- Hand it off to our team
- Test and publish
Let’s dive deeper into using MobiLoud's restaurant app maker.
Create an online ordering system
First, set up a browser-based site that does everything you want your app to do.
You could do this with one of the many online POS softwares on the market (e.g. GloriaFood, Ordering.co and UpMenu), with a no-code app builder like Glide or Bubble, or with web coding frameworks (such as HTML and JavaScript), if you have access to web developers in-house.
Today, it’s very straightforward to build a simple, mobile-optimized digital menu and ordering system for the web. Use the tool that you prefer, and design it with mobile users in mind, as this will be the bulk of your app’s content.
Get in touch with us
Once your website is mobile-ready, get in touch with us to schedule a personalized, free demo call.
We’ll show you a working prototype of your app, walk through the process in-depth, and take note of any specific needs or desires you have from your restaurant app.
Preview and customize the look of your app
Before development starts, you’ll have the opportunity to customize a few things about your app. MobiLoud apps aren’t a straight copy of your website - we add mobile navigation and menus and small mobile touches like splash screens and loading indicators to make it look and feel like a true native app.
You can also customize login screens and hide or show specific pages in the app, separate from the website.
Hand it off to our team
Once you’re happy, you’ll pass the project off to our team, and we code your Android and iOS apps.
You have nothing to do here, and you don't need any coding knowledge. We do all the development for you. Best of all, our process is fully optimized and streamlined, allowing us to ship the first version of your restaurant application in as little as two weeks.
Test and publish
You’ll be able to test a live version of your app on your own devices, and pass on to us any feedback or change requests.
Once that’s done, and you’re happy to launch, we’ll publish your apps to the Apple App Store and Google Play Store for you. This process can be difficult to navigate, but in our experience of publishing over 2,000 app store listings, we know it inside and out.
The only thing left for you to do is make your app visible to your customers and incentivize them to download it to their own devices.
Benefits of Using MobiLoud to Create a Restaurant App
You’ll find a lot of ways to build a restaurant app, such as no-code app builders, or coding custom apps in native mobile programming languages.
Each has their own pros and cons. When looking for the best option to build your app, you need to consider things like:
- Development cost.
- Resources & expertise needed to create the app.
- Launch time frame.
- If you use an app builder, do they offer support, while you build your app and after launch?
- How easy is it to keep your web and app experience consistent and in sync?
- How complicated and/or costly is it going to be to make changes to your app, menu, etc?
MobiLoud is the best solution, for all these reasons and more. Let’s compare MobiLoud to the other options now.
MobiLoud vs Coding Native Apps
The first thing most people think about when they think about building an app is coding.
Mobile app development is particularly long and expensive if you decide to build custom apps from scratch. While native development offers the highest level of performance and flexibility, it’s needlessly complicated and expensive for something as simple as a restaurant app.
You can expect to pay 5-figures for a native app, at least. You’ll need to double that cost if you want to launch on Android and iOS, as each platform needs its own app. And then you’re going to be paying minimum 4-figures (potentially more) each year to pay developers to maintain and update your apps.
Native development also takes a long time, and is even more complicated to link all your platforms (web, Android and iOS) together.
With MobiLoud, you can launch for under $1,000, in two weeks. Best of all, you can update your app content yourself, just by updating the content on your website. You’ll save tens of thousands of dollars over the lifetime of your app, just in maintenance costs.
MobiLoud vs Other Restaurant App Builder Tools
MobiLoud is not the only app builder or software tool that helps you build an app or ordering system for your restaurant. But it’s the best.
Here are a few reasons why:
- Greater flexibility: most app builders squeeze you into a cookie-cutter template. MobiLoud doesn’t - anything you can build for the web, you can do in your app.
- Performance: by simplifying the building experience, a lot of app builders end up performing worse (i.e. slow load speeds) for the end user. As long as your web app is fast and optimized, your MobiLoud apps will be as well.
- Multi-channel presence: With MobiLoud, you don’t have separate apps for web, Android and iOS. They’re all 100% in sync. This is important to be able to serve all your diners, including those who find you on the web.
- Support: MobiLoud’s support is unparalleled from any other app builders. We give you hands-on support while building your app, as well as support to keep your app maintained and up-to-date after launch.
- App store submission included: getting approved by the app stores can be a frustrating and confusing process. We do this for you, and can guarantee approval for your apps.
MobiLoud is by far the best mix of flexibility, power and affordability you’re going to find in an app builder. Couple that with the support we provide at every step, and there’s no better option to build your restaurant app.
Create an App For Your Restaurant Today
If you want to give your customers a better dining experience, and get them coming back and dining with you more often, we can help you create a restaurant app today.
Just get in touch to schedule a demo and check out what we can do for you. You’ll be shocked how easy the process is on your end, and how fast you can go live with your own restaurant mobile app.
