The Local by Masrawy

The Local needed their own ordering channel. They were on UberEats and paying commission on every order, with no way to know who their customers actually were. The ask was to build something that felt right for the brand and worked reliably day to day.

We built a Progressive Web App that lives on the customer's home screen, no App Store involved. Browse the full menu across three product lines, place a pickup order, earn loyalty points, and reorder your usual in a couple of taps.

Most of their digital orders were going through third-party delivery apps. That meant a commission cut on every transaction, no customer data, and no way to build any kind of relationship with regulars. People who came in three times a week were essentially strangers in the system.

There was also no pickup ordering option at all. If you wanted to grab something on your lunch break, you either showed up and waited or called ahead. For a busy spot, that's a real friction point.

We went with a PWA instead of a native app for a few practical reasons. There's no app store submission process, no review cycles, and no 30% cut going to Apple or Google. Updates ship instantly. And for a customer who's never heard of the app before, installing it is as simple as tapping "Add to Home Screen" from the browser.

The stack is React, TypeScript, and Supabase on the backend. Supabase handled auth, the database, and row-level security, which meant no custom server to maintain. Tailwind kept the UI consistent without a lot of overhead.

Loyalty points on the home screen

Points are visible the moment you open the app, not tucked away in a Rewards tab. The thinking was simple: if customers don't see their balance regularly, they forget it exists. Putting it front and center makes the program feel real without any extra taps.

Order Again

The home screen pulls in the customer's recent order items so they can reorder with one tap. For regulars who get the same coffee and pastry every morning, this cuts the whole flow from two minutes to about five seconds. Adding an item from that section shows a quick toast confirmation so it feels responsive without interrupting anything.

Pickup only

Delivery isn't set up on their end yet, so we didn't add a delivery option. Instead of showing a disabled toggle or a greyed-out field, we just didn't put it there. The checkout goes straight to pickup time selection. It's a simpler flow and there's nothing to confuse anyone.

Home

Personalized welcome with your first name, current points balance, and your recent orders ready to reorder.

The app is live and being used for real pickup orders at their Mississauga location.

A few things stood out on this one. PWA is genuinely underrated for local businesses. The install experience is good enough, updates happen silently, and you're not splitting revenue with a platform on every transaction.

The pickup-only constraint actually made the product better. Removing the delivery path simplified the checkout significantly and there's been no pushback from customers. Sometimes the right call is just not building the thing.

What's next

• Clover POS integration so the menu stays in sync and orders land directly on the terminal.
• Push notifications for order status updates.
• Delivery support once the logistics are figured out on their end.

This was a full end-to-end project, from figuring out what the client actually needed to shipping something their customers use every day. The goal was never to build the most feature-rich ordering app. It was to build the right one for where they are right now, with room to grow into.