How to build a food delivery platform in Bubble

To build a food delivery platform in Bubble, you create three things: data types (for Restaurants, Dishes, Orders, Users), pages (restaurant list, restaurant page, cart, checkout, driver dashboard), and workflows (adding items to cart, placing orders, assigning drivers, updating order status). You use Bubble’s database for storing everything, backend workflows for order status updates and notifications, and integrations like Stripe for payments. The whole system is built by connecting simple actions: create things, make changes to things, and show repeating groups filtered by constraints.

Core Data Structure

You need Bubble Data Types because this is how the app stores structured info.

• User: fields like role (text: customer/restaurant/driver), cart (list of Order Items).
• Restaurant: name, address, image, list of Dishes.
• Dish: title, price (number), image, restaurant (Restaurant).
• Order Item: dish (Dish), quantity (number), subtotal (number).
• Order: customer (User), items (list of Order Items), restaurant (Restaurant), driver (User), status (text), total (number).

Key Pages

Each page shows data using Bubble Repeating Groups and workflows.

• Home: Repeating Group of Restaurants.
• Restaurant Page: show Dishes filtered where Dish's Restaurant = Current Page Restaurant.
• Cart: Repeating Group of User's Cart (order items).
• Checkout: Stripe payment + create Order.
• Driver Dashboard: list of Orders where status = “ready for pickup”.

Main Workflows

• Add to Cart: create an Order Item, add it to User’s Cart.
• Checkout: charge with Stripe, then create Order using User's Cart and reset cart.
• Assign Driver: driver clicks button → make changes to Order: driver = Current User, status = “on the way”.
• Restaurant updates status: change Order status to “preparing”, “ready”, etc.

// Example backend workflow logic in Bubble terms
// Trigger: API Workflow "mark_order_ready"
Action 1: Make changes to Order
  status = "ready for pickup"

Payments with Stripe

Use Bubble’s Stripe plugin. On Checkout page, run “Charge the current user” and store the result’s charge ID in your Order so you can track payouts later.

Privacy Rules

• Customers can see only their own Orders.
• Restaurants can see Orders where Order’s restaurant = Current User’s restaurant.
• Drivers can see available Orders but only edit the ones assigned to them.

Notifications

You can send SMS with the API Connector using Twilio or send email using SendGrid. Trigger these in backend workflows when an order status changes.

This setup is enough to ship a working food delivery app in Bubble with real users, restaurants, orders, and drivers.