Chope works with Burpple to create mobile restaurant reservation app

Hot on the heels of Reserveit.sg, a rival online restaurant reservation website in Singapore called Chope.com.sg has launched their own iPhone app.

It allows users to browse a list of restaurants, find out details like location, opening hours, and cuisine, and then reserve a table. The app was designed and developed by Burpple, a mobile social food journal that launched a few weeks ago.

It’s interesting that Burpple and Chope describe themselves as “mobile strategic partners”, and I believe we can expect more manifestations of the partnership to unveil in time to come.

For example, if Burpple can incorporate a Chope-powered restaurant reservation feature into its mobile app, user experience could be dramatically improved.

Partnerships like these are what is needed in the startup scene. With limited resources and the need to be lean, startups can benefit by leveraging on each other’s capabilities and specializations.

Increasingly, we are starting to see not just partnerships between tech startups, but also between more traditional businesses like restaurants and mobile app developers.

Restaurants are starting to flock to mobile services like Perx, a loyalty card app, Swiff, a mobile payment service, online reservation apps like Chope and Reserveit.sg, as well as food delivery websites like FoodPanda and Dealivery.

This indicates that restaurant owners are willing to embrace online engagement beyond simply having Facebook Pages and Groupon deals.

With this supporting industry of food-related web and mobile apps emerging, restaurants (especially young ones that face small profit margins and high rentals) can certainly benefit from the reduced friction of getting food onto the diner’s tables.