Case study · 04 · Mobile app for iOS & Android
Order from the truck down the street, before you get there.
Start something like thisCustomer tour
From the welcome screen to the live map, a truck's page and its menu.
Placing an order
Customise a dish, check out with Apple Pay and follow the order to pickup.
A day as the vendor
Go live, accept orders through the queue, manage the menu and check earnings.
The short version
Customers order ahead and walk up to a pickup code. Vendors run the day from the same app.
The problem
Trucks move and sell out, so people find them by luck, and owners have no time for another tool.
What I built
A two-sided mobile app: live discovery and ordering for customers, a queue and menu console for vendors.
Why it works
Feed-first discovery, pickup codes and a one-tap order queue keep both sides fast.
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Experiences in one app: customer and vendor
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Screens designed and built
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Dishes across 10 sample trucks
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Codebase for iOS and Android
Curbly is a two-sided mobile marketplace for food trucks. Customers see which trucks are serving right now, order ahead and walk up to a pickup code. Truck owners run their day from the same app: a live queue, a menu with stock levels, earnings and a route for the week. It is a working prototype built to explore what a calmer, more premium take on the category could look like.
The challenge
Food trucks move, sell out and change their hours, so most people find them by luck or by scrolling an Instagram story. Ordering ahead is rare, and the owners are too busy at the window to manage another tool.
The goal was an app that answers three questions fast: what is open near me, how long will it take, and how do I skip the line. And a vendor side simple enough to use with flour on your hands.
The approach
Discovery is feed-first rather than map-first. A warm editorial home surfaces who is live, with the map as a card you can expand when you need it, instead of a full-screen grid of pins.
Ordering is built around pickup: choose a time, tip the crew, get a four-character code. The vendor sees the same order arrive in a live queue and moves it from new to preparing to ready with one tap, and the customer's tracking screen follows along.
What's inside
Two experiences share one app. Customers get discovery, ordering and tracking. Vendors get a console that fits in a pocket and survives a lunch rush.
01 · Discover
The home screen leads with trucks that are live, with ETA, distance and rating on every card. Categories, search and an expandable map are one tap away.
02 · Order
Each truck gets a proper page: story, hours, a map pin, its most-loved dishes and a full menu with customisation. Adding to the order never leaves the page.
03 · Pickup
Once an order is placed, the tracking screen shows the walk to the truck, a progress bar, the order status and a four-character code to show at the window.
04 · Vendor mode
Owners switch into a dashboard built for speed: go live with one switch, watch the day's revenue, accept orders and keep an eye on stock.
Gallery
Click any screen to see it full size, then use the arrow keys to move through the set.
How it fits together
The design choices that shape how Curbly looks, reads and feels in the hand.
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A cream canvas, deep forest green and a single citrus accent give the category a more premium feel than the usual dark map with neon pins.
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Most people want to know what is good, not where the pins are. Discovery leads with photography and ETAs, and the map expands when you ask for it.
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Orders are paid in the app and collected with a code, so the truck's window stays fast and nobody fumbles with a card in the rain.
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Owners are customers too. A single switch moves between the two experiences, which keeps the codebase and the design system shared.
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A floating tab bar, big tap targets and bottom sheets for secondary actions keep every common action within reach of one hand.
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Ten trucks, forty-five dishes, reviews, orders and payouts make every screen feel lived-in, so the design is judged on its merits and not on empty states.
Keep exploring
A few more things I've built and shipped, picked at random each visit.
