The restaurant world is always on the move, and tech is at the heart of all the big changes 🌐. Picking the right restaurant apps and tools is super important for restaurant owners aiming to make their lives easier, keep customers happy, and pump up profits.
🗝️ Key restaurant apps
1. resOS – restaurant booking system
2. Yelp – restaurant review app
3. Uber Eats – restaurant takeaway app
4. TripAdvisor – Global travel app
5. Instagram – Social Media app
6. MailChimp – Email automation app
7. 7shifts – staff management app
8. TooGoodToGo – restaurant food waste app
9. Feedly – newsfeed app
10. Evernote – digital task management app
In this fresh guide, we’re spilling the beans on the top apps every restaurant owner needs, tackling some burning questions, and shining a spotlight on the apps that are changing the game in the food biz 🍽️📱. Let’s get into what makes a restaurant tick and discover the tech that’s cooking up success.
What is the most popular restaurant review app?
In the realm of restaurant guide apps and platforms for rating restaurants, Yelp stands out as a prominent leader. It serves as a vital tool for discovering businesses and sharing user experiences, making it indispensable for managing your restaurant’s online reputation.
- Want to read more about popular review sites? Read here 👉 4 best restaurant review sites
- Or ger to know 👉 How to respond effectively to negative restaurant reviews
Should a restaurant have an app?
Absolutely. Having a dedicated app for your restaurant can significantly enhance customer engagement, streamline the ordering process, and provide valuable insights into customer preferences and behavior. Apps for restaurants not only offer convenience to your customers but also serve as powerful marketing tools to boost brand loyalty and revenue.
Essential Apps for restaurant owners
We have researched in order to create a list of 10 apps that restaurant owners can benefit from for their restaurants.
This list includes a short description of the apps, their prices, and also reviews from all types of sources. We hope you will find this list useful and that these apps will make everything easier for yourself, your staff, and, of course, your customers.
And if you want to read more about how to optimize and manage your restaurant you can read more about the 5-step guide we created here.
1. resOS – Restaurant booking app
An app that offers both a booking and a takeaway system that can be a huge help for your restaurant, as it offers two channels that your guests can make use of to pay for your services. resOS, has both of these systems and much more. With over 20 features that automate your processes and advanced settings, resOS offers flexible and easy-to-use restaurant software.
With 4 payment plans, resOS caters to small, medium, and large businesses in the restaurant industry. The Free Plan allows restaurants to use a maximum of 25 bookings and 20 orders a month, all without no fees. The other plans offer one month free as a trial, and the only costs are the costs for the plans as there are no hidden costs.
Also, the plans can be paid monthly or yearly, the yearly payment offering a 20% discount on the entire price. You can read more about the number of bookings and orders our plans offer and their monthly and yearly prices here.
We are proud to say that all the restaurants that used and are using resOS so far have been extremely satisfied with our services and software. Our customers’ satisfaction is the most important to us, and we are continuously working on improving our system and support based on the feedback we receive.
2. Yelp – restaurant review app
Yelp is like your digital megaphone 📣. It lets customers shout out about their experiences at your place, making it essential for managing your restaurant’s vibe and attracting more foodies.
Yelp is a top platform for restaurant reviews worldwide, helping businesses attract new customers and increase sales. It allows users to share their dining experiences and offers marketing services for various business sizes, including restaurants.
While creating a Yelp business profile is free, marketing services start at $1/day, with options like Call-to-Action buttons and ad removal. Prices and services details are available on their website.
Yelp, known for connecting consumers with local businesses digitally, boasts over 155 million reviews and has a large user base across mobile and desktop platforms, with most customers satisfied with their offerings.
3. Uber Eats – restaurant takeaway app
Think of Uber Eats as your delivery superhero 🛵🦸. It zips your delicious dishes straight to customers’ doors, widening your reach without adding extra seats to your restaurant.
UberEats is a global food delivery app that lets users browse menus, read reviews, order, and pay for food from restaurants. It benefits restaurants by helping attract new customers, encouraging repeat business, and offering control over operations with tools for marketing, analytics, and flexible delivery options.
Restaurants can choose from three payment plans: Lite, Plus, and Premium, with fees ranging from 6% for pick-up to 30% for delivery, depending on the chosen features.
Highly rated by users, UberEats partners with over 800.000 restaurants across 11.000 cities, serving over 89 million users worldwide, offering significant customer reach for restaurants.
4. TripAdvisor – Global travel app
TripAdvisor is your global billboard 🌍. It showcases your restaurant to travelers and locals hunting for the next best meal, helping your place become the go-to spot on everyone’s list.
TripAdvisor, initially a travel app for hotels and experiences, has evolved into the world’s largest travel guidance platform, offering services for lodging, transport, and restaurants across 43 countries in 22 languages.
Restaurant owners use it to manage listings, grow their business, and handle reviews.
While service costs aren’t listed online and require account creation for details, TripAdvisor supports 5 million restaurants globally, providing a platform for customer reviews, ratings, and easy booking integration.
With over 700 million reviews, it’s a trusted resource for users seeking reliable travel and dining recommendations.
5. Instagram – Social Media app
Instagram turns your meals into models 🌈. Snap, share, and show off your dishes in all their glory, engaging with your customers and making them drool over your feed.
Originally for restaurants, Instagram has become a popular platform for sharing photos and videos for both businesses and personal use. It offers features like ads, shopping, orders, branding, stories, reels, and direct messaging, making it ideal for restaurants to boost their visibility and attract customers with engaging content.
Creating a profile is free, allowing restaurants to showcase their dishes and locations, with advertising costs ranging from $0.20 to $6.70 based on the bidding model.
With 2.4 billion users, including 200 million businesses, Instagram is a powerful tool for growing your business and engaging with over 50% of users who show more interest in brands they see on the platform.
6. MailChimp – Email automation app
MailChimp is like your digital postman 💌. Craft and send out mouth-watering newsletters and promotions directly to your customers’ inboxes, keeping them hooked and hungry for more.
MailChimp is a versatile marketing automation platform that supports email marketing, sign-up forms, landing pages, and social media ads, alongside web services like websites and online stores.
Ideal for restaurants, it allows owners to focus on guests by handling various operations, from design and personalization to automation and optimization, with integration capabilities, such as with resOS.
MailChimp offers four plans, including a free option allowing up to 2,000 daily emails, with the main differences being features and price. Highly regarded by users and recognized with numerous awards, MailChimp sends over a billion emails daily for 1 million users across 200 countries.
7. 7shifts – staff management app
7shifts is your scheduling wizard 🧙♂️. It organizes your team’s shifts like magic, ensuring your restaurant runs smoothly and everyone’s on the same page.
A simple and intuitive app, 7shifts reinvents the way restaurant staff is managed and much more. 7shifts offers services such as employee schedules, tip pooling, time clocking, task management, engagement, and many more. The app offers integrations and resources such as blogposts, academy, restaurant data, videos, etc.
While offering a free demo to all restaurants interested in the product, 7shifts has 3 plans: Comp, Entrée, and the Works. Comp is free, it’s only for restaurants with a single location and it has limited features. Read more about the other 2 paid plans that 7shifts offers here.
7shifts is trusted and used by more than 30 000 restaurants all over the world. No matter if you have a pub, bakery, bar, or café, you will definitely be satisfied with this app, and it will make scheduling and managing shifts more convenient and less time-consuming.
8. TooGoodToGo – restaurant food waste app
TooGoodToGo is your food rescue hero 🌍💚. It connects your surplus meals with customers looking for quality food at a lower price, reducing waste and tapping into a new customer base.
TooGoodToGo is an innovative app aimed at combating food waste by allowing restaurants to sell surplus food to consumers at discounted prices. It fosters environmental sustainability and opens up a new revenue stream for eateries. By listing unsold food items on the app, restaurants can attract eco-conscious customers, turning potential waste into profit.
With its easy-to-use platform, TooGoodToGo requires no upfront fees, charging only a small transaction fee for each meal sold through the app. Embraced by restaurants and consumers in numerous countries, TooGoodToGo is celebrated for its significant impact on reducing food waste while helping restaurants increase their profits and sustainability efforts.
9. Feedly – newsfeed app
Feedly is your personal newsfeed curator 🗞️. Stay on top of food trends, industry news, and what your competitors are up to, keeping your restaurant ahead of the curve.
Feedly is a news aggregation app that gathers content from various online sources, allowing users to customize and share news. It’s especially beneficial for restaurants to stay updated on culinary trends, food tips, new dishes, and global restaurant news. Feedly’s AI, Leo, tailors content to your interests, delivering relevant news quickly.
The app offers three plans: Pro (without Leo) at $6/month billed annually, Pro+ with more features including Leo, and Enterprise with all features, with prices available upon inquiry. Feedly has over 100,000 satisfied users worldwide, offering excellent customer service and insightful content through its advanced AI, Leo.
10. Evernote – digital task management app
Evernote is your digital notebook 📚. Jot down recipes, ideas, and to-dos, keeping everything organized and accessible across all your devices.
Evernote is a versatile app designed for task management and note-taking, allowing users to enrich notes with visuals like photos, videos, and web content. It’s useful for restaurants for organizing bookings, daily tasks, or digitalizing recipes, promoting efficiency and paperless operations.
The app offers three plans: Free, Personal, and Professional, catering to different user needs, with the Professional plan being ideal for businesses. Evernote helps users capture, organize, and access information swiftly, even offline, making it popular among over 225 million satisfied users.
Do you have any questions about resOS?
We are here in case you have any questions about our system or if you need our help with setting up your profile. You can always reach out to [email protected].
