Building a real-world app is one of the best ways to learn full stack development.
Not just another TODO app.
Not just another isolated API.
Not just another mobile UI demo.
In this full course, I build a complete food delivery platform from absolute zero using NestJS, React Native, Expo, Drizzle ORM, Neon Postgres, Stripe, Socket.io, and more.
You can watch the full video tutorial here:
What we are building
The project is a complete food delivery app with three user roles:
- Customer
- Restaurant Owner
- Driver
Customers can browse restaurants, add items to their cart, pay with Stripe, and track the driver live on a map.
Restaurant owners can manage their menus, receive incoming orders, and update order statuses in real time.
Drivers can go online, receive assigned orders, broadcast their GPS location, and complete deliveries.
The goal of the course is not only to build screens and endpoints, but to show how the different parts of a real application work together.
The stack
For the backend, we use:
- NestJS for the REST API
- Drizzle ORM for schema-first, type-safe database access
- Neon Postgres as the hosted database
- JWT authentication with role-based guards
- Socket.io for real-time order updates and live GPS tracking
- Stripe for real payments
- UploadThing for image uploads
- Upstash Redis for caching
For the mobile app, we use:
- React Native
- Expo SDK 55
- Expo Router
- React Query
- Zustand
- react-native-maps
- Expo Location
- TypeScript
The project is structured as a monorepo with pnpm workspaces, with the NestJS backend and the Expo React Native app living in the same repository.
What makes this course different
A lot of tutorials stop at basic CRUD.
This one goes further.
We build features that are closer to what you would expect in a production app:
Authentication across multiple roles
We implement registration, login, JWT authentication, and role-based access control for customers, restaurant owners, and drivers.
Each role has a different experience inside the mobile app.
Role-based navigation with Expo Router
The app uses file-based routing and separate layouts depending on the authenticated user role.
A customer should not see the driver interface.
A driver should not see the restaurant owner dashboard.
A restaurant owner should have access to menu and order management.
This makes the app feel like three apps inside one.
Restaurant and menu management
Restaurant owners can create and update their restaurant profile, manage menu items, and upload images.
This gives us a good example of how to handle CRUD operations, protected routes, image uploads, and backend validation.
Cart management with Zustand
On the customer side, we use Zustand to manage the cart locally.
This keeps the cart logic simple, predictable, and separated from server state.
Stripe payments
We implement a real Stripe payment flow using PaymentIntent, the Stripe payment sheet, and webhook verification.
This is one of the most important parts of the course because payment flows are often where demo apps become more realistic.
Order state machine
Orders move through a complete lifecycle:
PENDING → CONFIRMED → PREPARING → READY → PICKED_UP → DELIVERED
Each transition matters, because customers, restaurant owners, and drivers all need to see the right status at the right time.
Real-time updates with WebSockets
We use a NestJS WebSocket gateway to broadcast order updates.
Customers can see when their order is confirmed, prepared, picked up, and delivered.
Restaurant owners can receive new orders in real time.
Drivers can receive assignments and update delivery progress.
Live GPS tracking
Drivers broadcast their location using Expo Location.
The customer app receives those coordinates through WebSockets and updates the driver marker on the map using react-native-maps.
This gives the app one of the most recognizable features of modern delivery platforms: live tracking.
Redis caching with Upstash
We also add Redis caching for restaurant lists and menus.
This introduces the cache-aside pattern and shows how to invalidate cached data when the underlying data changes.
What you will learn
By following the course, you will learn how to:
- Structure a full stack monorepo with pnpm workspaces
- Build a modular NestJS backend
- Use controllers, services, guards, and decorators
- Define database schemas and migrations with Drizzle ORM
- Connect to Neon Postgres
- Implement JWT authentication
- Build role-based access control
- Create role-based mobile navigation with Expo Router
- Manage server state with React Query
- Manage local cart state with Zustand
- Integrate Stripe payments
- Verify Stripe webhooks
- Build real-time features with Socket.io
- Track driver GPS location with Expo Location
- Display live location updates on a map
- Add ratings and reviews
- Cache data with Redis and Upstash
Why NestJS and React Native?
NestJS is a great choice for building structured backend applications with TypeScript.
It gives you a clean architecture with modules, controllers, services, guards, decorators, dependency injection, and testing patterns.
React Native with Expo is a strong choice for building mobile apps quickly while still having access to native features like location, maps, and payments.
Together, they make a powerful stack for developers who want to build full stack products using TypeScript across the backend and mobile app.
Who is this tutorial for?
This tutorial is useful if you are:
- A backend developer learning mobile development
- A React Native developer who wants to build real backend systems
- A full stack developer looking for a real-world project
- A NestJS developer who wants to go beyond CRUD
- A student or junior developer looking for a portfolio project
- A developer interested in payments, WebSockets, maps, and GPS tracking
Final thoughts
The best way to learn full stack development is to build projects that force you to connect many concepts together.
Authentication, database modeling, payments, real-time communication, mobile navigation, maps, caching, and role-based permissions are often learned separately.
In this course, they all come together inside one complete application.
Watch the full tutorial here:
How I built my Food Delivery App using NestJS and React Native
