Kebab Guru started as a question: what if finding a great kebab felt less like a Google search and more like an adventure? The answer became a full-stack platform - mobile app, web directory, and community - built entirely by a small remote team alongside their day jobs.
The Problem
Most food discovery is either generic - a Google Maps star rating with no soul - or locked inside delivery platforms that push customers toward ordering from home. Neither serves someone who actually wants to go out and find the best kebab in the city.
There was no dedicated space for kebab culture. No way to track your personal kebab journey, no community around it, no reason for great kebab places to stand out from mediocre ones.
What We Built
The platform has three surfaces working together: a mobile app for the active experience, a web directory driving organic discovery, and community channels keeping engagement alive between visits.
Mobile App
The core loop is built around earning your stripes as a kebab explorer. Users check in at places (location-verified), rate their experience across multiple dimensions - taste, packaging, service, atmosphere - and earn XP through a leveling system designed to keep progression feeling rewarding at every stage.
The top visitor at any location earns the “Top Kebabista” title, displayed on that place’s listing. Monthly leaderboards reward the three most active users with actual free kebabs.
Beyond gamification: advanced filtering by protein type, sauce, and packaging; interactive maps; personal stats dashboards; and full profile customization with unlockable avatars and badges.
Web Platform
The website does a different job. SEO-optimized place listings bring in 12,000 organic clicks a month from people searching for kebabs in their city - many of whom then find their way to the app.
The site also houses the community statistics page, comic-style lore pages building out the platform’s universe, and the broader brand presence.
Business Side
A business dashboard is in the works, giving kebab place owners tools to manage their profile, respond to the community, keep opening hours accurate, and run offers through the app - a direct channel between great kebab places and the people looking for them.
Technical Highlights
- Cross-platform consistency between Flutter (mobile) and Next.js (web)
- SEO architecture behind 300K+ monthly search impressions
- A gamification engine tuned to reward genuine activity and stay fair
Traction
Kebab Guru has been featured on national television and keeps popping up wherever Lithuanians talk about food. More telling than the media moments: the community is becoming real beyond the screen. Monthly leaderboard winners collect actual kebabs, the “Most Loved Kebab Place 2025” contest drew 15K visitors, 500 nominations, and over 1,100 votes - and people increasingly meet at the counter, not just in the app.
Where It’s Going
The focus now is deepening the community experience and giving kebab places their own home on the platform - with a long-term ambition of taking the concept to other European markets where kebab culture runs deep.
