Apple Caffe Macs
Order-ahead for employees, and Menu Maker for the chefs behind every meal.
From kitchen to campus, one connected dining experience.
Caffe Macs is Apple’s on-campus dining service. Partnering with the lead visual designer, I shaped the visual design of its order-ahead mobile app and Menu Maker, the dashboard chefs used to publish dishes and ordering details. At launch, employees across multiple Apple campuses could order ahead, pay, and pick up through one connected service.
MY ROLE
UX Visual Designer
TEAM
Lead Designer UX Visual Designer
TIMELINE
2 Months
SKILLS
Visual design · Mobile UI ·
Dashboard UI
TOOLS
Give employees their lunch break back
Employees were losing too much of the workday waiting in line for food, and ordering had too many pain points to patch one at a time. Caffe Macs needed a fast, easy way to order ahead and pick up when food was ready. The design challenge was making two sides work as one service: an app for employees, and a tool for chefs whose menus changed by the day, week, and month.
Order ahead, pick up when it’s ready
Chefs published each day’s dishes and ordering details in Menu Maker, and employees browsed, ordered, and paid in the app, then picked up when their food was ready, skipping the line.
KEY DECISIONS
Three decisions behind a faster lunch
The service only worked if the menu was current and ordering was quick. These choices kept both true.
Design for menus that change
Dishes changed by the day, week, and month, so menu layouts had to hold changing content without breaking or feeling out of date.
Publish once, show it everywhere
Designing Menu Maker alongside the app kept what chefs published in step with what employees saw, with no second version to maintain.
Built for a short lunch break
Employees ordered within a limited lunch window, so menus were designed to scan quickly, from browsing to paying.
A connected launch across campuses
From day one, employees across multiple Apple campuses could order ahead, pay, and pick up instead of waiting in line, while chefs kept every menu current from one tool.
The backstage is part of the experience
An order-ahead experience is only as good as the information behind it. Designing the employee app and Menu Maker together showed that the internal tools keeping a service current deserve the same care as the customer-facing flow, because to the customer, they are one experience.
