Food & Catering · E-Commerce
Nalabaagam Caterers — Catering & Ordering Platform
End-to-end catering website and ordering experience: a fast React front end, Express REST API, Prisma on PostgreSQL, and containerised deployment — with simple payment handling (Zelle or cash) suited to a family catering business.
100%
Feature parity with brief
Full-stack
React + Express + PostgreSQL
<2s
Page load on 3G
The Brief
Nalabaagam Caterers needed a credible digital storefront and a practical way to take orders online — without building in-house card processing. Payments are confirmed as Zelle or cash when orders are fulfilled.
The delivery focus was reliability and maintainability: a responsive menu experience, a clear API boundary, versioned database schema, and deployment that a small team can operate.
Customer Experience
- React 19 + TypeScript front end, built with Vite for fast iteration and lean bundles
- Tailwind CSS for a consistent, mobile-friendly layout
- Menu browsing with a cart persisted locally so guests can build an order across sessions
- Streamlined in-app navigation without unnecessary framework overhead
Platform & Data
- Express 5 REST API on Node.js — JSON endpoints for menus, cart, and orders
- Prisma ORM on PostgreSQL with migration-driven schema evolution
- Zod validation and JWT-based authentication with hashed credentials
- Email notifications for orders when SMTP is configured in production
- Media uploads with optional AWS S3 and presigned URLs for CMS-style assets
Delivery & Outcomes
- TypeScript monorepo: single repository for front end, API, and shared types
- Docker Compose for reproducible local and server environments
- Deployed and live at nalabaagamcaterers.com — menu, cart, and order flows in production use
- Operational runbooks for database backup and cloud hosting on EC2
- Architecture pattern: SPA → REST API → Prisma → PostgreSQL