Meet the Pitmaster Collective App: Connecting BBQ fans

At ArcTouch, we love creating experiences that spark genuine connections with customers. Our project with the Pitmaster Collective, a membership community for BBQ enthusiasts, does just that. The Pitmaster Collective app brings together BBQ fans, top restaurants, and world-renowned pitmasters.

This membership-based loyalty app combines a unique blend of innovative UX design and robust technical execution. In this post, we’ll discuss the app's key features and the technology that makes it all possible.

Igniting connections: Features that bring BBQ fans together

For BBQ fans, it’s more than just food; it's a way of life. This app fosters a meaningful connection among members of this enthusiastic community, providing exclusive VIP access to food, perks, and content. The Pitmaster Collective app includes: 

• Discounted dining: Members get 10% off at any of the participating BBQ restaurants in the United States. Members can also use “skip the line” passes to avoid long waits at participating restaurants. 

• Learn from the experts: The app offers direct access to pitmasters, featuring pit tours, live webinars, and virtual master classes, bridging the gap between BBQ legends and aspiring grill masters.

• Exclusive content and perks: Enjoy membership benefits, including monthly giveaways and discounts on BBQ gear, access to On ‘Cue magazine, exclusive events, and more. 

• Improve your grill skills: The app includes delicious BBQ recipes, tips to troubleshoot grilling challenges, advice from pitmasters, and more. 

Technology that cooks 

At ArcTouch, one of our core values is ownership. This means every team member takes pride in the work—even if we don't actually own the resulting product, it has to meet our high standards.

In this project, I’m most proud of how we were able to work in a tight timeframe — 10 weeks from concept to delivery of the design, development, and back-end APIs. Here are three highlights of the lovable features and technology that powers them:  

Simple sign-up and sign-in via OTP

One of our main goals was to reduce and remove the various friction points that prevent people from joining this loyalty program. This meant leveraging technology and user-experience best practices for signing up, signing in, password management, and purchasing membership subscriptions.

We implemented a one-time password (OTP) option. So instead of entering a password, users request a code sent to their phone via SMS — through integration with SuperTokens and Twilio — to create a new account or sign into their existing one. 

We integrated native e-commerce so users could easily pay for the membership through in-app purchases. We also created a link via Stripe to identify subscribers who signed up directly through the Pitmaster Collective website.  

Contentful for flexible content management

For the Pitmaster Collective app, we implemented Contentful as our content management system (CMS). Contentful's flexibility as a headless CMS made it the perfect choice for the app's unique content needs, particularly when it came to showcasing the connection between pitmasters and restaurants.

We crafted an intuitive content model that makes it easy for the Pitmaster Collective team to add and update information. This involved setting up separate Contentful environments for development and live data, meticulously managing content model updates, and providing a detailed authoring guide for their staff. 

One of the biggest challenges we tackled was representing the many-to-many relationship between pitmasters and restaurants. Contentful doesn't natively support this type of relationship, so we had to get creative. After careful consideration, we implemented a solution that ensures data consistency and ease of management: restaurants now house the information about their associated pitmasters. This approach streamlined the content editing process and eliminated potential data discrepancies. Our expertise with Contentful, backed by our team of certified professionals, allowed us to overcome this hurdle and deliver a seamless content management solution.

Act (and eat) locally with location services

For true BBQ aficionados, the thrill of the chase is half the fun. That's why we designed the Pitmaster Collective app to enhance the local BBQ experience using the phone's location services. With access to a member's location, the app can:

• Uncover hidden gems: Discover nearby BBQ restaurants you might have otherwise missed.

• Score sweet (or spicy) deals: Be alerted to special offers at participating restaurants nearby.

• Stay up-to-date: Integrated Google Places API ensures the most current hours of operation, contact information, and other essential details for each restaurant are right at your fingertips.

Built to scale

The Pitmaster Collective app is built with scalability in mind, ensuring it can grow with their business.

As the community expands to new cities and states, the app's location-based features will seamlessly adapt, connecting BBQ lovers with the best local experiences across the country. And with the CMS, the app can continuously evolve to serve up an even richer, more engaging experience for BBQ fans everywhere.

About ArcTouch

Since the dawn of the App Store, ArcTouch has been designing and developing lovable apps for companies of all sizes. Want to grow customer loyalty and engagement through digital products? Contact us to get started.