Front-of-house rollout

The challenge

What the client needed.

A new food service operation needed multiple counters live before opening day. The fit-out was still in progress, the menu was being finalised and the staff had not yet been hired when the technology had to be specified and ordered. There was a fixed opening date and no room for a soft launch.

The owners also wanted to avoid the common problem of orders being taken at the counter and lost on the way to the kitchen. Every counter had to send orders to the right preparation area without a runner carrying paper tickets, and every sale had to be recorded for end-of-day reconciliation.

What we did

We worked from the floor plan while the building work was going on, agreeing counter positions, kitchen printer locations and where the network and power points needed to be. Hardware was ordered against that plan and pre-configured in our workshop so that installation on site was a matter of positioning and connecting, not setting up from scratch.

The menu was loaded with categories, modifiers and pricing once it was confirmed, and order routing was set so each item prints at the correct kitchen station. Staff training was run on the live system in the days before opening, using the actual menu, so the first customer was not the first test.

• Touch terminals at each counter, pre-configured before delivery
• Thermal receipt printers at the counters
• Kitchen printers with order routing by preparation area
• Cash drawers connected to each terminal
• Menu, modifiers and pricing loaded and tested
• Network points and power protection at every counter
• Staff training on ordering, payment and end-of-shift reporting

The outcome

Counters were trading from day one with orders reaching the kitchen printed. Staff who had been on the system for only a few days were taking orders and closing sales without supervision, and the kitchen received clear tickets showing what to make and which counter it came from.

Daily sales reporting by counter and by staff member gave the owners a clear picture of the first weeks of trading. Because the counters were installed as part of the fit-out, there was no retrofitting of cable or power once the restaurant was open.