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2013 · US · Enterprise · Mobile · Consumer · Hospitality

Why Wait — a restaurant locator and aggregator app

A nearby-restaurants mobile app combining discovery, menus, deals and bookings — filterable by the user's dining preferences, not just distance.

Enterprise Mobile Consumer Hospitality
Why Wait — a restaurant locator and aggregator app

In one breath

  • Consumer restaurant discovery app with real-time menus, deals and bookings
  • Filtering by personal dining preferences (cuisine, diet, price, mood)
  • Favourite a restaurant, request a booking or claim a coupon in one place
iOS + Android

Platforms

Discover · Book · Save · Redeem

Core flows

Preference-driven

Filtering

01 · The challenge

What was broken, what was at stake

Most "nearby restaurants" apps are glorified maps. "Why Wait" wanted to help users decide, not just list — filtering by the user's actual dining preferences and collapsing three or four separate apps (discovery, menu, booking, coupons) into one.

02 · The approach

How we thought about it

Make the preference the first-class input, not the geography. Cuisine, diet and price point get captured once, then every subsequent session filters discovery accordingly. Booking and coupon redemption became in-app actions, not hand-offs.

03 · What we built

The actual solution

Mobile app on iOS and Android with preference-driven discovery, menus and deal listings, favourites, booking requests, and coupon redemption.

04 · The results

What shipped, what changed

Users moved from "where is nearby" to "where should I eat tonight" in fewer taps — the core product promise of the app.

Timeline

Phase by phase.

  1. 01

    Discovery

    2 weeks

    User interviews on restaurant-choice behaviour. Preference taxonomy.

  2. 02

    Design

    2 weeks

    Preference capture on onboarding. Discovery feed UX.

  3. 03

    Build

    6 weeks

    Parallel iOS and Android. Booking + coupon integrations.

  4. 04

    Launch

    1 week

    Restaurant onboarding content and store submission.

Stack

Tools and tech used.

iOSAndroidLocation + preference ranking engineBooking integration

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