Gusto: find food through friends, not empty star dumps

Maps, feed, and restaurant profiles

Gusto is a social food discovery app. Users explore restaurants on maps, post dish photos, read community reviews, and follow a feed shaped by taste and friends.

Project intent

Help people find places worth eating through maps, friends, and dish photos, without another generic ratings wall.

Challenge

Star averages hide whether a place fits your crowd. Diners wanted recommendations from people they trust, on a map they can browse, with photos that show the plate. That needs maps, media, and a mobile social loop that still feels fast.

Solution

We shipped React Native and React clients with Express and Django services on EC2 and ECS. RDS PostgreSQL stores social and place data. S3 holds community photos and restaurant media. Google Maps Places, Map SDK, and geolocation power discovery. Sentry covers crashes. CloudWatch covers server logs. Mobile targets the App Store and Play Store. Web sits on Vercel.