---
title: "Food & Beverage Software Development"
description: "Tarmac builds mobile ordering and loyalty apps for food and beverage chains. We rebuilt the Caribou Coffee app in Flutter for about 500 locations."
canonical_url: "https://www.tarmac.io/industries/food-beverage/"
last_updated: "2026-10-01"
---

[Industries](https://www.tarmac.io/industries/) / Food & Beverage

Food & Beverage

# Mobile ordering software for food and beverage brands.

Food and beverage chains need an ordering app that works in the morning rush, prices a customized menu correctly, and routes every order to the right store. Tarmac builds for that: we rebuilt the Caribou Coffee app as one Flutter codebase with Order Ahead across about 500 locations.

[Let’s team up→](https://www.tarmac.io/contact/?source=industries-food-beverage) [Read the Caribou Coffee story](https://www.tarmac.io/work/caribou-coffee/)

The context

## What makes food and beverage ordering software hard

Three constraints that shape an ordering app before a line of code is written.

### The rush is the product

Mobile ordering earns its place in the busiest hours of the day, when the line is longest. An app that is slow or unreliable at exactly that moment sends guests back to the queue.

### The menu is business logic

Sizes, temperatures, milks, flavor shots, add-ons, and seasonal items all have to price and validate correctly. Every rule has to behave the same on every phone and at every location.

### Hundreds of stores, one brand

Each location has its own hours and pickup options, and the order has to reach the right one. Guests expect the same app and the same rewards wherever they walk in.

How Tarmac helps

## One senior team for the ordering app, the backend, and the release pipeline

[

### Custom software development→

Ordering apps and the backend behind them, built to keep shipping for years.

](https://www.tarmac.io/services/software-development/)[

### Product design (UX/UI)→

Menus, customization, and checkout that make a regular order take two taps.

](https://www.tarmac.io/services/design/)[

### DevOps & cloud→

CI/CD and infrastructure that make a release routine rather than an event.

](https://www.tarmac.io/services/devops/)[

### Data engineering & analytics→

Order, loyalty, and location data turned into decisions about menus and stores.

](https://www.tarmac.io/services/data-science/)

Proof

## Food and beverage case studies

[

~500

Caribou Coffee store locations supported

Caribou CoffeeView case study →

](https://www.tarmac.io/work/caribou-coffee/)

> “Their partnership helped us create a strong foundation that lets us launch features faster across platforms as our business needs evolve.”
> 
> Ben Alman, Lead Software Engineer, Caribou Coffee

Questions, answered

## Food and beverage software FAQ

Have you built mobile ordering for a multi-location chain?

Yes. For Caribou Coffee we built Order Ahead and the custom backend behind it, so guests can order from the full menu and pick up at their chosen coffeehouse across about 500 locations.

Should we build natively or with Flutter?

It depends on the product, and we build both ways. For Caribou, one Flutter codebase replaced separate iOS and Android apps, which reduced platform-specific inconsistencies and meant every feature was built and tested once. Where an app leans heavily on device hardware, native can be the better call.

Can you work on an app we already have?

Often that is how it starts. Caribou began as a redesign of existing native apps, grew into a new ordering platform, and later became a full rebuild in Flutter.

How senior is the team?

Senior. Our engineers average 14 years of experience and work in your time zone under the Tarmac 10 quality process. You get people who have shipped this before, not juniors learning on your project.

## Is your line longer than it should be?

Tell us where ordering gets stuck. We’ll bring a senior team that builds the app, the backend behind it, and the pipeline that keeps it shipping.

[Let’s team up→](https://www.tarmac.io/contact/?source=industries-food-beverage) [info@tarmac.io](mailto:info@tarmac.io)

## Sitemap

See the full [sitemap](https://www.tarmac.io/sitemap.md) for all pages on tarmac.io.