Curries Online – Android Restaurant Ordering & Bluetooth Kitchen Printing System

Curries Online, based in Cwmbran, South Wales, operated a nationwide online food ordering platform allowing customers to place real-time orders from participating curry restaurants across the UK. They required a dedicated Android tablet app for restaurants that would streamline order handling and automate the kitchen workflow.

This project involved building a full restaurant-facing app that integrated tightly with their existing cloud-based ordering platform and supported Bluetooth thermal printing in the kitchen — a capability rarely seen in Android apps at that time.

Business Requirements

The restaurant app needed to:

• Display incoming orders in real time on Android tablets located in restaurants
• Allow staff to accept or decline orders instantly
• Automatically print accepted orders via a Bluetooth-connected thermal printer in the kitchen
• Synchronise acceptance/decline decisions with the cloud ordering system
• Allow restaurants to send delivery estimates, notes and order updates to customers
• Poll the cloud API regularly to ensure the order list stayed up to date

Solution

New Media Aid developed a bespoke Android restaurant ordering app that integrated with Curries Online’s existing web-based ordering platform. The app provided restaurants with a fast, reliable, and user-friendly way to manage incoming orders and fulfil them efficiently.

Key features included:

• Cloud API integration to fetch new orders every 60 seconds
• Order list with visual states: new, accepted, declined, printed
• Bluetooth printing module compatible with thermal receipt printers
• Instant syncing of order decisions back to the cloud
• Delivery-time selector and update messaging for customers
• Warning dialogs for declined orders or system issues

Early Android Screenshots

Below are screenshots from the original restaurant tablet app:

Results

The system provided restaurants with an efficient way to receive and manage orders without needing a desktop computer or old-style till system. Kitchen staff benefited from immediate printed order tickets, reducing delays and improving order accuracy.

The project showcased early innovation in Android-based POS, Bluetooth printer integration, and real-time ordering workflows — long before these capabilities became standard in food delivery platforms.

This early work helped shape later mobile workflow systems we developed across retail, logistics, and field services.