New iPhone app to order food and organise meals. Photo: Witer
A new app launched by two Croydon entrepreneurs enabling users to book restaurants and order food in the borough straight from their mobile phones looks set to go national after a successful first month in operation.
Businessmen Mathew Gomes and Hurshkumar Donde created Feast Express, an online food ordering and restaurant booking service that allows you to choose your favourite food from a wide range of restaurants, then either order a takeaway or book a table with just a swipe of your fingers.
Since its launch on the 20th of January, Feast Express has already collected more than 400 users, along with high ratings and positive reactions in the app market.
“We chose the word ‘feast’ because we wanted to bring in the idea of celebration,” explains co-founder Mathew Gomes. “We believe that food is a social experience that people want to share and enjoy together. It is also something in which people always want to indulge, and Feast Express gives you the opportunity to share this pleasure with your friends and family.”
The app is to be tested in Croydon before it goes national and Gomes thinks it’s the perfect place for the app to launch. “It’s a very large borough with a young population, it’s very well connected to London and the market is fairly buzzing” he explains. “With about a thousand restaurants and takeaways, it seemed like the perfect place to launch this new business.”
The app allows you to find which restaurants are closest to you and view their menu and special offers. It also features a joint ordering function, meaning that two people on different devices can place one single order and share the cost.
“We realised that there was a gap in the market of food-ordering apps and websites,” Gomes explains. “Other services currently available don’t allow you to organise a dinner with your friends, they don’t have a social feature. With Feast Express you can also rate the restaurants you have been to, and see how your friends rated them. You always trust your friends’ recommendations more than all those strangers’ reviews. Feast Express is very efficient in this sense.”
Another feature of Feast Express is that you can filter vegetarian and halal food, or make your choice of food without nuts, dairy, gluten and shellfish. Gomes added: “We basically asked ourselves: how can technology help you in choosing the way you want to eat? Feast Express is the answer. It makes eating easy and stress-free, a moment of socialising and joy.”
