Food delivery APIs that connect your ordering platform, kitchens, and drivers into a real-time operation.
We build APIs for food delivery startups — restaurant POS integrations, kitchen display system APIs, delivery driver dispatch connectivity, and the real-time data pipelines that keep order status accurate across every part of the fulfilment chain. Fixed scope, fixed price.
An order comes in through your platform. Someone is reading it on a tablet in the kitchen. A driver gets a text. The customer is watching a progress bar that's guessing. Every hand-off in that chain is an integration that doesn't exist yet.
Food delivery platforms have a fundamentally multi-party technical architecture — the customer places an order, the restaurant prepares it, the driver picks it up, and the customer receives it. At each hand-off, there's a data event that needs to flow to multiple parties simultaneously: the kitchen needs to know the order was placed, the driver needs to know when the food is ready, the customer needs to know when the driver is close. Without real-time API connectivity at each hand-off, every party is either guessing or waiting for a human to relay the information.
Restaurant integration is the hardest part of the technical stack. Restaurants use point-of-sale systems that vary widely in API maturity — Square, Clover, and Toast have modern REST APIs. NCR and Aloha have legacy integrations that require a middleware layer. Many independent restaurants have no POS API at all and require a tablet-based order receipt approach. Each restaurant integration requires a specific approach, and a food delivery platform serving hundreds of restaurants needs an integration strategy that can handle the full range of POS maturity.
The driver experience is also integration-dependent. Assigning an order to a driver, confirming pickup, and tracking location for customer ETA delivery all require a driver app with API connectivity to the dispatch system and the mapping service. The customer-facing ETA that builds trust — the one that says "your driver is 3 minutes away" — requires driver GPS data flowing through the platform in real time.
A food delivery API layer that connects your ordering platform to restaurant POS systems, kitchen display screens, and driver dispatch — with real-time order status flowing to the customer without a human in the middle.
Restaurant POS integration
Square, Toast, Clover, and Lightspeed REST API integrations for order injection — orders placed on the delivery platform sent directly to the POS, no tablet required. Menu sync from POS to delivery platform for item availability and pricing. Order status confirmation from POS to platform.
Tablet-based order receipt fallback
For restaurants without a compatible POS API, a web-based order management interface that runs on a tablet and receives orders via WebSocket — displays new orders with audio notification, allows confirmation and estimated preparation time. Kitchen order receipt for non-integrated restaurants.
Kitchen display system integration
Order data pushed to KDS hardware (Square KDS, Toast KDS) via API at order confirmation. Course and modifier data displayed correctly. Completion triggers driver availability notification.
Driver dispatch API
Driver assignment from the dispatch queue when food is near ready. Real-time driver location via driver mobile app GPS. Customer ETA calculated from driver location and route. Driver arrival at restaurant and customer confirmed via app status events.
Real-time order status pipeline
Order status events (confirmed, preparing, ready for pickup, picked up, delivered) published via WebSocket to customer app, restaurant, and driver simultaneously. Customer-facing delivery tracking with live driver location. Built on Next.js API routes, WebSocket for real-time events, Postgres, mapping APIs (Google Maps Routes API), and POS REST integrations.
One honest number to start.
Fixed-scope, fixed-price. The number below is the starting point — final scope is built from your brief.
A food delivery API layer that connects your ordering platform to restaurant POS systems, kitchen display screens, and driver dispatch — with real-time order status flowing to the customer without a human in the middle.
Three steps, every time.
The same repeatable engagement on every project. No surprises, no mystery, no billable ambiguity.
Brief & discovery.
We send you questions, then get on a call. Output: a written scope with every step, feature, and integration listed.
Build & ship.
Fixed schedule, weekly reviews. No scope creep unless you change the scope — and if you do, we reprice it transparently.
Warranty & retainer.
30-day warranty on every launch. Most clients stay on a monthly retainer for ongoing features and maintenance.
Why Fixed-Price Matters Here
Food delivery startups have a short window between launch and when the market moves. A defined API integration scope with a fixed price is how you commit to a launch date and a technical budget rather than discovering the scope as you go.
Related engagements.
Questions, answered.
The POS integration is designed as a driver/adapter pattern — new POS integrations can be added without changing the core platform logic. A new POS type requires a new adapter (typically 1–2 weeks to build and test) rather than a platform change.
The tablet-based order receipt fallback handles this case — it provides the same order notification and confirmation workflow as a POS integration without requiring POS API access. Most independent restaurants are comfortable with a tablet approach.
Multi-order dispatch requires routing logic to determine whether a second pickup is compatible with the first delivery's time window. We scope the dispatch complexity (single-order vs. stacked delivery) during discovery. Stacked delivery adds routing optimisation scope.
POS integration layer (2-3 POS systems), tablet fallback, driver dispatch API, and real-time order status pipeline typically runs $35k–$75k. Number of POS integrations and stacked delivery logic are the main variables. Fixed-price.
10 to 14 weeks for a production food delivery API layer with restaurant integration and driver dispatch operational.
Tell Ryel about your project.
Describe what you’re building and what outcome you need. You’ll have a written, fixed-price scope within the week.