M01 – Restaurant Management System & Ordering Platform

How It Started

M01 began as a straightforward request: build a digital menu app for a new cocktail bar in Helsinki. The founder wanted customers to browse and order from their phones rather than waiting for staff. Simple enough – until the scope grew.

As the project developed, the vision expanded. Rather than a single-venue tool, M01 would become a platform for multiple restaurants, bars, and cafés – combining a customer-facing ordering app, a point-of-sale system for staff, and a back-office for venue management. What started as a menu app became a full restaurant operating system, built over four years of continuous development.

The Challenge

Three problems defined the technical complexity of M01.

Real-time inventory management was the most operationally critical. For small restaurants with tight stock, an order placed through the app needs to immediately update ingredient quantities across every related menu item. Order a cheeseburger and the available count for hamburgers and double cheeseburgers adjusts too – because they share ingredients. Getting this right meant customers never ordered something that couldn’t be made, and kitchens never got blindsided.

Order processing and payment verification at volume required a system that could handle simultaneous transactions without errors – from item selection through to payment confirmation – while keeping the experience fast and frictionless for the customer.

Evolving from a single-venue app to a multi-restaurant platform mid-project meant re-architecting for scale without disrupting what was already live. New features – sets, bundling, subscriptions, POS integration, payment terminal connectivity – had to be layered in iteratively without breaking the core experience.

What We Built

M01 is now a complete restaurant management system with three interconnected layers.

Customer App

iOS and Android apps letting customers browse menus, place orders, and pay directly from their phones – at the table or for takeaway. Customers can find new venues, leave reviews, and store card details for one-click payment. No queuing, no waiting for staff.

Point of Sale

A POS system for restaurant staff with real-time order management, inventory tracking, and connectivity with payment terminals. Orders placed through the customer app flow directly into the POS, keeping front-of-house and kitchen in sync.

Back-Office & Web Plugin

A management panel for venue operators covering menu configuration, stock management, order history, and marketing tools. A web plugin extends ordering capability to the venue’s own website without requiring customers to download the app.

How We Worked

The engagement ran for over four years, starting with a two-person core team and scaling based on project needs. Communication ran through daily Slack messages and weekly meetings – the founder was closely involved throughout, and direct access to the decision-maker kept iteration cycles short. As the team changed over the years, knowledge transfer was handled without disruption to delivery.

Technology

The platform is built with Angular and TypeScript on the frontend, Java and Spring on the backend, with MySQL for data persistence. Google Firebase handles real-time functionality, Google Maps powers venue discovery, and the infrastructure runs on AWS.

Results

M01 grew from a single cocktail bar’s digital menu into a multi-venue platform now used across a chain of restaurants in Finland, including the Round In group. The platform has been through a full UI/UX audit and multiple major feature releases over four years of continuous development – and the client relationship is still active.