A home-cooked meals marketplace with Wolt delivery – selling your own food legally

The goal was to create a platform that:

• lets home cooks sell their dishes safely and legally, without having to run a restaurant,
• makes it easy for cooks to manage their offer, orders and dish availability,
• gives customers quick access to local home-cooked meals,
• brings ordering, payments and communication together in an intuitive, consistent system for both cooks and customers,
• gives administrators a central system for managing users, orders, dishes and reports.

The biggest challenge was combining many complex processes - order logistics, payments, document handling and frequent changes - into one clear, easy-to-use system.

The Boring Owl team designed and implemented a complete technology architecture covering all of the platform's key processes:

• Frontend: Next.js - a fast, responsive, SEO-friendly framework for building dynamic views.
• UI: shadcn/ui and Tailwind CSS - a modular component system and flexible styling for a consistent, modern interface.
• Backend: Nest.js - a fast, scalable and modular backend handling business logic, user management, dish availability and order processing.
• Database: PostgreSQL - a stable, fast and secure database optimized for heavy loads and complex queries.
• Cache and queuing: Redis - used for sessions, job queues and speeding up order and notification processing.
• Third-party integrations:

  • Stripe - online payments, settlements and transaction security.
  • Wolt API - automatic delivery requests, delivery pricing and real-time courier tracking.

• Different paths for different users: the platform supports several account types (e.g. people placing orders and people fulfilling them), and some profiles go through a verification process. To keep the purchase path as short as possible, customers can also order without creating an account.
• An area for those fulfilling orders: users who offer dishes have their own panel for managing their offer (updating items, availability, dates), handling orders and communicating order status.
• An area for customers: customers can order as guests or after logging in, view their order history, leave ratings and reviews, and manage their details and preferences.
• Admin panel and moderation: on the operations side, there are tools for managing users and content on the platform - including verifying new profiles, viewing activity, overseeing offers, orders and reports, and configuring platform-wide settings.
• Intuitive ordering: the ordering process was designed to be quick and clear - forms adapt to the type of offer and the available dates, and users see up-to-date information about preparation time. Depending on the need, different fulfillment options are available (e.g. pickup or delivery).
• Search and matching: the system makes it easy to find the right offer using geolocation and filters (e.g. location, cuisine type, mealtime), shortening the path from landing on the site to completing an order.

• A complete food marketplace that works for both customers and cooks.
• A smoother meal ordering process - customers can order in a few minutes without contacting the cook directly.
• An efficient cook verification process - an admin panel for approving applications, reviewing documents and overseeing menus and availability.
• Automated deliveries through the Wolt API integration - delivery requests and courier tracking in one system.
• Greater transparency and operational control through an extensive admin panel covering users, reports, orders and platform settings.
• A better user experience thanks to an intuitive ordering path and clear panels for customers and cooks.
• Greater user trust thanks to a transparent ordering process, reviews, cook profiles and visible dish information (ingredients, allergens, add-ons).

Home Chefs is a modern, fully automated platform that lets home cooks sell their meals legally and conveniently, and lets customers order home-cooked food quickly and easily. Built with technologies such as Next and Nest and integrated with Wolt, the platform delivers a high level of automation, security and convenience.