Short answer
RaftLabs built Grubly, a food platform letting restaurants, cafes, and QSRs accept orders without third-party commissions. Customers order by scanning a QR code: no app download required. Grubly processed 10,000+ orders and saved owners $5,000 in delivery commissions in 15 days. It includes menu management, featured items, payments, and order tracking. Built in 12 weeks using NestJS, PostgreSQL, and Hasura.
The situation
Every order placed through a third-party delivery platform costs a restaurant between 15 and 30 percent of the order value in commission. For a cafe processing $30,000 in monthly orders, that is $4,500 to $9,000 leaving the business every month, paid to a platform that also owns the customer data and controls the ranking.
Grubly gives that channel back to the restaurant. We built it as a SaaS platform where restaurants configure their menu, enable QR code ordering, and accept payments directly. Customers scan a table QR code or a printed sticker and order from a mobile-optimized site: no app download, no third-party redirect. The client reported that Grubly processed 10,000+ orders and saved owners $5,000 in commissions within the first 15 days of launch.
The commission is the visible tax. The hidden one is the relationship. When a customer orders through a marketplace, their email, phone number, and order history sit in the platform's database, not the restaurant's, and the platform markets that customer to whichever restaurant nearby pays most that week. You built the reputation that made the search happen. The platform kept the customer.
Engagement
The Grubly engagement
- Product
- Grubly, a SaaS food ordering platform for restaurants, cafes, and QSRs
- What we built
- Direct ordering: QR code menus, mobile-optimized ordering site, multiple payment methods, a real-time kitchen display, and customer data that belongs to the restaurant
- Stack
- Mobile-optimized web app, real-time order and menu sync, QR ordering, payment integrations
- Status
- Live. The client reported 10,000+ orders and $5,000 in commission savings within the first 15 days
Before and after
What changed
- Every online order placed through a third-party platform cost the restaurant 15 to 30% in commission, with no way to reduce that fee over time
- Customer data (names, order history, contact details) belonged to the delivery platform, not the restaurant; building direct relationships was structurally blocked
- Menu changes required updating multiple platforms separately; an item sold out or a price changed meant multiple logins and manual edits across every channel
- Restaurants had no visibility into which customers ordered most frequently, which items drove return visits, or which promotions moved volume
- Staff time spent relaying phone and in-person orders to the kitchen was a recurring overhead that grew with order volume
- Restaurant owners keep the full order value minus payment processing fees: no platform commission on direct orders placed through Grubly
- Customer contact information and order history accumulates in the restaurant's own account, enabling direct re-engagement and loyalty mechanics
- Menu updates go live across all QR codes immediately from one admin panel: one change, all tables updated
- Restaurant owners see order volume by item, payment method, and time period from a real-time dashboard
- Customers scan a QR code and order directly from their phone; the order routes to the kitchen display without staff taking it manually
What we had to solve
Getting customers to order through a QR code when they already have delivery apps installed
A new ordering channel only works if customers use it. The friction is low (scan the code, see the menu, tap to order) but the habit pull of familiar apps is real. The platform had to load fast enough on a mobile browser that customers did not stop and open a competitor app instead. That meant sub-second QR code landing pages, a menu layout that made item selection immediate, and a checkout flow with as few steps as possible. The conversion from scan to completed order was the metric that determined whether the product worked.
Keeping menu and order data in sync for restaurant operators managing peak service periods
A QR code menu that shows items already sold out, or an order management dashboard that lags during a lunch rush, undermines the case for switching from a system that worked reliably even if it charged more. The real-time layer had to push sold-out toggles, availability changes, and new order notifications to the kitchen display instantly. A five-second delay at peak service is long enough for orders to stack up and for staff to stop trusting the system.
Proof
What the client reported, and what this page can't claim
Early-launch figures reported by the client. These are operator reports, not independently audited measurements.
| Result | What changed | Period or context | Evidence and limitation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Early traction | 10,000+ orders in the first 15 days | Customers scan a table QR code and order from a mobile-optimized site. No app download, no third-party redirect | Client-reported |
| Commission savings | $5,000 saved on delivery platform commissions | Restaurant owners keep the full order value minus payment processing fees on direct orders | Client-reported |
| Delivery | Concept to a live platform in 12 weeks | Menu configuration, QR ordering, payment acceptance, and a real-time kitchen display, shipped as a SaaS platform | Product-recorded |
the build
What we built
Grubly is built around one goal: a restaurant owner should be able to set up online ordering in under an hour and stop paying platform commissions from that day forward.
Customers scan and order from the table, no app download, no account required
Customers scan a QR code on the table, menu card, or printed sticker and see a mobile-optimized menu instantly. No app download prompt, no account creation required. The scan-to-order flow was optimized for the moment when a customer is sitting at a table and ready to order: minimal steps, fast load, direct checkout.
Owners update prices and promote specials: changes are live instantly across all QR codes
Restaurant owners update menu items, toggle availability, set prices, and promote best sellers or seasonal specials from a web admin panel. Changes go live across all QR codes immediately. The featured item feature lets owners surface high-margin dishes or limited-time offers in a dedicated position that customers see before browsing the full menu.
Customers pay their preferred way, fewer abandoned checkouts
Customers pay by card, UPI, contactless phone payment, or any method the restaurant enables. Payment choice affects order completion rate: customers who cannot pay their preferred way abandon checkout. Grubly's payment layer integrates multiple gateways so restaurant owners can activate the methods their customer base uses most without a separate integration for each.
Orders hit the kitchen display in real time; customer data belongs to the restaurant
Orders appear on the restaurant's kitchen display in real time as customers submit them. Restaurant owners see daily order volume, revenue by item, payment method breakdown, and customer contact details from the same dashboard. The customer data belongs to the restaurant, not to a delivery platform, enabling direct re-engagement for promotions, events, or loyalty programs.
The lesson
The commission is not the only tax
Most restaurant owners calculate only the commission when they decide whether to build a direct channel. The deeper cost is the customer. Every order through a marketplace is an order where the restaurant gets a ticket and the platform gets the relationship: the name, the email, the order history, the loyalty loop. You cannot run a loyalty program for customers you do not know.
Grubly's design treats customer data as the restaurant's asset from the first order. Contact information and order history accumulate in the restaurant's own account, enabling direct re-engagement. The commission savings are real, but they are the argument that gets the conversation started. Ownership is the argument that closes it.
How it runs
- NestJS
- The order management backend handles concurrent order submissions from multiple tables, payment gateway webhooks, and real-time kitchen display updates simultaneously. NestJS's modular architecture kept each concern organized as the feature set expanded beyond the initial MVP.
- PostgreSQL
- Menu items, order customizations, payment records, and customer history have relational dependencies that need transactional integrity. No order can be double-confirmed or lost when a payment webhook arrives out of sequence.
- Hasura
- Real-time order status (submitted, confirmed, being prepared, ready) needed to push to the kitchen display and the customer's phone instantly without polling. Hasura's GraphQL subscriptions delivered that without a separate websocket implementation.
- AWS
- Grubly serves restaurants across multiple cities with traffic that spikes sharply at lunch and dinner. CloudFront delivers QR code menus fast from cache; auto-scaling compute handles the order processing spike without over-provisioning for off-peak hours.
Common questions
The friction is lower than it appears. Customers at a table, ordering at a counter, or picking up food are already in the restaurant's context; scanning a QR code there takes the same effort as opening a delivery app. The key is making the QR code visible at the decision point: on each table, at the counter, and on the takeaway packaging. Most restaurants that switch see in-venue ordering move to Grubly quickly because the QR scan is faster than opening a separate app. Delivery orders take longer to shift because customers are ordering from home and habit is stronger there.
Yes. Each location has its own menu configuration, QR codes, and order stream within a single Grubly account. A chain operator can run distinct menus per location, see order data per location or consolidated across all locations, and manage each menu independently. Menu items can be shared across locations as a template and then overridden per location for price or availability differences.
Restaurants pay a flat SaaS subscription to Grubly plus standard payment processing fees (typically 1.5 to 2.5% depending on the payment method and gateway). There is no per-order commission. For a restaurant processing $30,000 in monthly orders that was previously paying 25% commission to a delivery platform, the switch removes $7,500 in monthly fees, leaving a SaaS subscription and processing fees well below that as the replacement cost.
Grubly supports card payments, UPI, and contactless phone wallet payments. Customers select their items, choose a payment method, and complete checkout without leaving the mobile site. The receipt and order confirmation appear immediately in the browser. The checkout flow was designed for speed: from the first item added to order submitted should take under 60 seconds for a typical order.
We built Grubly (QR code ordering, menu management with real-time availability, multiple payment gateway integrations, kitchen display system, real-time order tracking, and restaurant analytics dashboard) in 12 weeks. The focused MVP scope (no delivery routing, no driver management, no loyalty mechanics in the first version) is what made that timeline possible. A platform that also handles delivery logistics, multi-location franchise operations, or integrated loyalty programs would take longer. Contact us to scope based on your restaurant's specific requirements.
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