UrbanPiper
Designing the operating system
for 45,000+ restaurants
Backed by Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global, and Peak XV since 2015, UrbanPiper now powers operations for over 45,000 restaurant locations across 30+ countries. From billing and inventory to order management and customer engagement, their platform brings every operational need into one seamless system. Built for scale, UrbanPiper’s product suite is designed to simplify complexity, reduce friction, and help teams run smarter - whether it’s a single outlet or a global chain.
Industry
B2B SaaS
Stage
Growth
Deliverables
User Experience Design, User Interface
Design, Usability Testing, Website Design
The vision
As UrbanPiper expanded globally, so did the demands on their product suite that was built to serve everyone from floor staff taking orders to founders tracking performance. To support the next phase of scale, they set out to unify their ecosystem into a seamless, intuitive platform - one designed for clarity, speed, and the realities of restaurant operations.
The challenge
But with growth came complexity. As adoption scaled across markets, new users faced growing friction. Despite its power, the platform was becoming harder to navigate. They realised it was time to bring clarity to users by streamlining workflows, simplifying decisions, and making the experience feel like one cohesive product.
The solution
We partnered with UrbanPiper over a 3-year period, working as an embedded extension of their product team. Our goal was to connect the dots across their growing ecosystem. We worked across five core products, from point-of-sale systems to real-time analytics to streamline complex workflows, reduce cognitive load, and unify the platform under a single, intuitive design system.
Before we touched a screen, we hit the ground
We started with people not pixels. Our team spent weeks observing how restaurant teams actually work - shadowing owners, speaking to floor staff, sitting through daily ops reviews, and observing closely the chaos between lunch rushes. That research helped shape all future decision making.
The biggest blocker over the flashiest feature
Instead of chasing shiny features, we focused on the immediate user needs: a single, secure way to access everything.
Logging into different tools with different credentials was a daily pain point for users. It caused delays, confusion, and security risks - especially for teams managing dozens of locations. We introduced a unified OTP-based login system that gave users access to all their tools with one account.
The result: an immediate drop in support tickets, faster onboarding, and a platform that felt easier from day one.
Rewriting the Menu for Ops Efficiency
Menu updates were a daily headache, especially for brands operating across multiple locations with regional pricing, seasonal menus, and platform-specific tweaks. Teams were spending hours making the same change in multiple places.
We redesigned menu workflows to reduce redundancy and increase control:
Managers could now bulk
edit items across menus
Set automation rules for things like
pricing changes by region or time of day
Preview and publish updates
with full visibility across locations
A single view to stay ahead, not play catch-up
Managers were often reacting to problems after they’d already hurt business - missed orders, stock-outs, delivery delays. We helped build Periscope, a real-time monitoring dashboard that gave teams instant visibility into key metrics across locations. From inventory glitches to app sync issues, managers could now catch and resolve problems before they escalated.
We also redesigned the analytics experience to give each role what they need - with 100+ filters, visual comparisons across brands, and clear insights that drive faster decisions.
Built for the chaos of cloud kitchens
Cloud kitchens often operated multiple brands out of a single location - but UrbanPiper’s workflows treated each brand as a separate business. This meant managers had to log in repeatedly and make the same updates across disconnected menus, tools, and platforms.
We redesigned that experience to reflect how cloud kitchens actually run. With one dashboard, managers can now control menus, inventory, availability, and pricing across all brands. Filters by location, platform, or brand ensure they only see what’s relevant, while smart defaults and contextual controls reduce duplication and errors.
Whether you were running three brands or thirty,
everything could now live in one system.
Designing a suite into a system
UrbanPiper’s tools had evolved quickly, but not always cohesively. Each product had its own look, feel, and flow - making switching between them jarring for their users. We built a unified design system that brought consistency across all core tools - aligning visuals, interaction patterns, and logic.
Reimagining the platform, not just the product
What started as individual tools is now a connected operating system for restaurants. Our work with UrbanPiper’s leadership and product teams helped shape how the entire platform should evolve from daily operations to long-term scale.
“Parallel made it a point to understand the product and the impact they have or should have. They worked patiently with our in-house teams of Product, Design and Engineering, without the slightest hint of friction.”
Anirban Majumdar
Co-founder & Co-CEO, UrbanPiper