Is a custom restaurant app worth it?

Perhaps you run a small, cozy café on the corner, filled with the aroma of fresh pastries and strong coffee. Or maybe it's a bustling downtown restaurant, where laughter and clinking glasses fill the air every evening. You live for your business – for every dish, every guest's smile. You know your heart beats to the rhythm of the kitchen, and your mind constantly seeks new ways to make your restaurant even better.

Today, in the world of technology, as a restaurateur, you're constantly seeking ways to grow and evolve. You understand that a mobile app isn't just a trendy gadget; it's a real communication channel with your guests. Online orders, convenient booking, personalized offers – all of this gives your business a serious boost.

At such a moment, many start wondering: "Should we really build our own app?"

A Costly Lesson

Consider, for example, a small pizza chain in Europe. They dreamed of an app – with a unique design, bonus games, cooking videos, and crucially, the ability to easily order pizza. They believed this would help them avoid commissions and save money.

They hired a small freelance studio. The initial estimate — around 25–30 thousand euros — no longer seemed acceptable. But that was just the beginning.

Designers redrew mockups multiple times, programmers encountered unexpected challenges, support was completely absent as it hadn't been discussed, and every new feature – be it POS system integration or smart recommendations – cost more and more, given the lack of experience and budget constraints.

Ultimately, after eight months, the app was still not ready. They had already spent over 70 thousand euros, and continuous refinements were needed. When the app finally launched, users complained about bugs and a clunky interface, spamming social media and app store pages.

In the end, they abandoned the idea of their "own" app, losing money, time, and a portion of their customers.

Even large chains, like Blaze Pizza in the USA, faced similar issues. They started with in-house development but later switched to the Thanx solution. As their marketer Christian Kuhn stated: "Our own platform was very expensive and difficult to maintain."

Pizza to the Office, or Your Own Pizzeria From Scratch? Come On…

Someone might come up to you and say: "Why don't you build your own pizzeria? Why buy ready-made pizza or use delivery services?"

You'd probably smile. To open your own pizzeria:

• You'd need a designer to plan the space. Or a reliable landlord with the right location.
• Builders — to erect walls, install electricity, water, and ventilation.
• Of course, specialized equipment: not just an oven, but a professional pizza oven capable of turning out hundreds of pizzas a day.
• Refrigeration equipment, exhaust systems, sinks.
• Suppliers for all kinds of flour, cheese, tomatoes, sausages, vegetables — and not just the ones you have for your restaurant, because pizza needs its own specific products.
• A staff of new employees: pizzaiolos who know all the intricacies of working with dough and the oven, a front-of-house manager, servers or order pick-up staff, cleaners.
• You'd need a logistics and delivery system if you plan to deliver pizza: couriers, cars or scooters, thermal bags.
• And also — marketing specifically for the pizzeria, so customers know about your new spot.

The list goes on endlessly. These are huge investments, time, and a diversion of all your resources from what you already do brilliantly. After all, you don't want to become a builder or a logistics manager, you're a restaurateur!

So why are many ready to take the same risk with a mobile app? Developing your own app is like building a pizzeria from scratch for office needs (We ain't talking about Meta, right?), just in the digital world.

The Digital Kitchen

Imagine that, in addition to your pizzeria, you decided to add a car fleet and manufacture your own delivery vehicles because "it would be better for the brand." Sounds absurd, right? Most cars have four wheels, a steering wheel, and an engine, yet they differ greatly from each other—whether it's a Porsche or a Lada. They solve one task, but in different ways. The same applies to mobile applications.

By creating your own application, you are essentially opening another "factory"—an IT department. And this means:

• Constant Staffing. You will need a minimum of two to three experienced developers for each platform (mobile, backend), a web programmer, one QA specialist (tester), a designer, and possibly a Project Manager. These aren't one-time expenses, but monthly salaries. And this is just to maintain what already exists.
• DevOps and Hosting. An application needs a home. This involves servers (hosting) and specialists who monitor their stability and security (DevOps engineers). These are constant expenses and risks of failures.
• Unforeseen Updates. Mobile operating systems (iOS, Android) are updated monthly, security requirements change, and new standards emerge. Your team must constantly adapt the app, otherwise it will simply stop working or become slow.
• Security Threats. Remember how many restaurant chains fell victim to cyberattacks, losing customer data. Maintaining IT security is a separate discipline, requiring experts and continuous investment. Competitors, unfortunately, are also active and may try to exploit vulnerabilities.
• Feature Development. If you want to add a new function (e.g., integration with a new loyalty system or the ability to pay tips through the app), you will most likely have to double your development team or hire new staff to avoid dragging out the process for months.
• Loss of Focus. Your main task is to create delicious dishes and an unforgettable atmosphere, manage staff, and work with suppliers. Suddenly, you become a technical director who must understand API versions, backend and frontend, UX/UI design, and testing. This drains valuable energy from your core business.

The costs for updates and supporting your own development can amount to approximately 150 thousand euros annually, not to mention hosting, security, and salaries. It's like owning a house: you bought it—and then endless repairs and bills that never stop begin.

You limit your functionality. To create an application from scratch that is comparable in features to professional ready-made solutions would require a huge budget and years of work. You would likely be limited to basic options, while your customers expect personalized promotions, loyalty programs, integrated payments, smart recommendations, and other conveniences they are used to in giant apps. If the app is inconvenient or lacking features, they will simply delete it.

Eatery Club™: Your Ecosystem – Without Unnecessary Hassle

And here, at this crossroads, another opportunity emerges. Instead of taking on the burden of complex and costly development, you can consider a ready-made solution like Eatery Club™. We don't just offer an app. It's a complete HoReCa management ecosystem, built on the experience and needs of many restaurants.

We don't suggest you build a pizzeria from scratch; we offer you the chance to simply focus on what you love most, while we handle the digital tools.

• Fast Launch. Forget months of waiting. Your own, branded mobile app from Eatery Club™ can be ready for launch in the shortest possible time.
  You'll start taking orders and reservations through your own channel almost immediately.
• Transparent Costs. Instead of unpredictable and huge one-time expenditures, you get a transparent monthly subscription. This is significantly more affordable than custom development and ongoing support, allowing you to accurately plan your budget. We take on all the technical worries: support, updates, and feature development, so your app is always current and runs smoothly.
• Profit Recovery and Direct Customer Contact. With your own app, you can significantly reduce or completely eliminate aggregator commissions. Money that used to go to intermediaries now stays with you. You can invest it in gifts and bonuses for your guests, directly increasing their loyalty and average check. This also gives you full control over your brand, communications, and marketing, and allows you to collect and analyze customer behavior data for further growth and service optimization.
• Comprehensive Functionality. The solution already includes everything a modern restaurant needs: a convenient online ordering system, flexible delivery and pickup settings, powerful loyalty programs to retain customers, and intuitive table booking. Among the features are our AI agent for personalized guest communication, self-service kiosks, and even a Wi-Fi portal customization module for your restaurant.
• Focus on Your Business. We handle the technology, so you can fully concentrate on your true passion – creating culinary masterpieces and providing an excellent customer experience.

Ultimately, the choice, of course, is yours. You can try to reinvent the wheel, spending vast resources and time that could have been invested in brand development, staff training, or creating new, incredible dishes. Or you can choose a path that has already proven its effectiveness: using a ready-made, tested, and continuously evolving solution.

What will you choose?