How I Built a Food Delivery Platform Processing 200+ Daily Orders.

In mid 2024, Eatup had a clear vision to create a food delivery platform that could compete with the big players while supporting local restaurants. Six months later, the platform is live, processing over 200 orders daily, and supporting 15+ restaurant partners.

In this post, I'll walk you through the technical decisions, challenges, and solutions that went into building a production-ready food delivery platform from scratch.

EatUp faced a common startup problem: they needed a custom platform that could:

They needed to launch within 3 months and keep costs reasonable for a bootstrapped startup. However, off-the-shelf solutions like Shopify or WordPress couldn't handle the complexity of multi-vendor management and real-time tracking, they needed a custom web application.

After analyzing their requirements, I recommended building a full-stack JavaScript application using the MERN stack (MongoDB, Express.js, React, Node.js). Here's why:

MongoDB - Perfect for storing dynamic restaurant menus, order data, and user profiles. The flexible schema meant we could iterate quickly without database migrations.

Express.js + Node.js - Excellent for handling real-time connections (WebSockets for live order updates) and processing high volumes of concurrent requests.

React - Allows building three separate interfaces (customer app, restaurant dashboard, admin panel) while sharing components and logic.

The platform consists of four main components:

The customer app is a responsive React web application where users can:

Key technical decision: We built a Progressive Web App (PWA) instead of separate iOS/Android apps. This meant:

Each restaurant gets their own dashboard to:

Challenge solved: We implemented role-based access control so restaurant managers could give limited access to staff members without sharing full admin credentials.

Delivery drivers use a mobile-optimized interface to:

Technical highlight: The driver interface updates order status via WebSocket connections, so customers see live updates without refreshing.

The EatUp team uses a comprehensive admin panel to:

This was the most technically challenging feature. Here's how it works:

Backend: When a customer places an order, the server creates an order document and emits a WebSocket event to three parties:

Frontend: Each interface subscribes to relevant WebSocket channels and updates the UI instantly when order status changes.

Result: Customers can see exactly when their food is being prepared, when the driver picks it up, and track delivery in real-time. This transparency reduced "Where's my order?" support tickets by 70%.

Unlike single-restaurant systems, EatUp needed to support dozens of independent restaurants, each with:

Solution: I designed a flexible restaurant schema that allows each vendor to operate independently while the platform handles order routing, payment collection, and commission calculation automatically.

When a customer places an order:

This happens automatically without manual intervention, which was crucial for scaling.

We integrated two payment gateways:

Why two? Redundancy. If one gateway has downtime, orders continue processing through the backup. We also track which gateway has better success rates for different payment methods and route transactions accordingly.

Security measures:

With 80% of orders coming from mobile devices, mobile optimization wasn't optional, it was critical.

Approach:

Result: The app works smoothly even on older smartphones with slower internet connections, which is essential in Nigeria's market.

During lunch hours (12-2 PM), order volume spikes 5x. Initial deployment caused server slowdowns and the following solutions were implemented:

This approach improved server response time from 800ms to under 200ms during peak hours.

An order involves 4 parties (customer, restaurant, driver, admin), each needing real-time updates. We built a centralized event system using Socket.io rooms. Each order creates a "room" that all relevant parties join. When status changes, one emit updates everyone.

Restaurants needed to update menus quickly (daily specials, sold-out items), but menu changes were slow and required technical help. We built an intuitive menu editor with drag-and-drop reordering, bulk editing, and the ability to duplicate items. Restaurants can now update menus in under 2 minutes.

After 6 months in production, here are the metrics:

We launched with core features only: browse, order, pay, track. Features like loyalty programs and promo codes came later after validating the core platform worked.

Lesson: Don't build everything at once. Launch fast, gather feedback, iterate.

The real-time order tracking was technically complex but became the most-loved feature. Customers specifically mention it in reviews.

Lesson: Invest in features that directly improve user experience, even if they're harder to build.

We spent extra time optimizing mobile performance, and it paid off. 80% of users are on mobile, many with slower connections.

Lesson: Test on real devices with throttled connections, not just your MacBook on fast WiFi.

Even though we started small, we architected the system to handle growth. When order volume doubled, the system handled it without major refactoring.

Lesson: It's easier to build for scale upfront than to rewrite later.

If you're a startup founder or business owner thinking about building a custom platform, whether it's food delivery, marketplace, or any other web application, the key is finding a developer who:

I'm Abiodun Biobaku, a full-stack developer based in Manchester and London, UK, specializing in React, Next.js, and Node.js. I work with startups and businesses to build web applications that solve real problems.

Whether you need a food delivery platform, marketplace, booking system, or custom web application, I'd love to discuss your project.

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