Order and pay at the table

For dine-in and bar service, whether guests order and pay from their own phones or the team takes payment at the table, and to let booked guests order ahead. Letting guests self-order and pay speeds up service and turns tables faster.

A guest scans the code on their table, reads the venue’s live Square menu, orders and pays, with nothing to download and no need to catch a server’s eye. The order lands on the till already knowing which table it came from. Each venue gets separate links for ordering at the table and ordering to collect, curated independently, so table service and pickup can offer different items at different prices.

Each table can carry its own QR code, or one venue-wide code sends guests to a table picker first, so it never needs reprinting when tables change. The venue code and every table’s code download as PNG files named after the venue and table. Each venue says whether orders are brought to the table, collected from the counter or the guest’s choice, and the table picker uses those words.

On a collection menu with scheduling switched on, guests choose a collection time at checkout, with as soon as possible as the default, and the venue sets how much notice it needs. A venue can take collection orders for today only, today and tomorrow, or three or seven days ahead, so a kitchen that has closed can still take tomorrow’s orders. The time picker groups slots by day, and the guest’s order page shows when a scheduled order will go to the kitchen.

Guests give their name, phone and email when they start an order, and checkout fills itself in from that. Returning guests are not asked twice.

The order is sent straight to the staff who need to make it and rings in at the till, so it is part of the same service flow rather than a separate channel.

Items arrive live from the Square catalogue with their prices, photos, modifier groups and minimum and maximum rules, and the menu that arranges them is built in Stampede, so each product is kept up to date once. Modifier rules are enforced as the guest builds an item, allergens, dietaries and calories sit on every product, and a basket containing alcohol asks for age confirmation before it reaches checkout. A basket can be shared round the table, so everyone adds their round and one order goes to the till.

The menu wears your venue’s brand kit: its colours, logo and picture, right up to the browser bar on the guest’s phone. A menu can set its own page and text colours where it differs from the rest of the venue, such as a late-night list. In a food hall, each section can take its own brand kit, logo and photograph, so walking into one restaurant repaints the page in that restaurant’s colours.

A menu also chooses its card shape and hero photo. A food-hall menu can show each vendor or section as a card: guests pick one, see its dishes, then come back for another, or hop straight to the next vendor, and each vendor’s page shows its own wait time.

Guests can filter the menu two ways. A diet filter keeps dishes that carry every tag picked, such as vegan and gluten free. An allergen filter keeps only the dishes that carry none of the allergens picked, and shows how many dishes are left before the guest applies it.

A venue whose allergen tags are incomplete can switch the allergen filter off.

Guests can also search the menu. Search matches dish names, descriptions, section headings and dietary tags, so vegan finds vegan dishes, and it highlights the words that matched. A guest can type a sentence such as two kids and someone vegan and get a shortlist grouped under each request, with a reason for each dish. If a menu carries no allergen information, search says so and asks the guest to speak to staff. On phones the search sits beside the basket.

On long menus guests can jump straight to a section, and the menu shows which section they are reading. Items sold in more than one size, such as wine by the glass or bottle, show a size choice with its own price. A set menu lets the guest pick a dish for each course. At checkout a guest can add a kitchen note to a dish, for all of that dish or just one, and the note reaches the kitchen ticket. Suggestion rules can pair whole categories, such as burgers suggesting the bar, and pricier suggestions get their own row in the basket.

Payment is by card through Square at checkout, with the total recalculated from the venue’s own menu data before anything is charged. A guest can put one or more of their Square gift cards, including cards issued as loyalty rewards, against the bill, and an order fully covered by them needs no card at all.

Cards that need the bank’s own security check go through it at checkout, and guests are told plainly when the venue cannot take cards right now.

Staff can still take the order and payment at the table on a Square Terminal by card, cash or an external tender, with an optional tip at checkout, and booked guests can order ahead from the same menu and pay before they arrive.

One menu can be live at several venues, and those venues can sit in different Square accounts. A guest sees one menu, builds one basket and pays once. Each venue’s items come from its own Square catalogue, and the guest never sees which venue or which account an item belongs to.

Because a Square payment settles to one location, a menu that spans venues names the venue that takes the money. Every order from that menu is charged at that venue’s Square location, so the takings land in that location’s bank account, and the other venues’ parts of the order are marked paid for fulfilment. You choose this once, on the menu’s Venues tab under Money goes to. Left unset, the money follows the venue that makes the food, which is how a single-venue menu behaves.

• Products are maintained once in Square and synced across; menus are arranged in Stampede.

• The total is recalculated from the venue’s own menu data before a card is charged, so the amount taken is always the venue’s amount.

• Table and collection links are curated separately, so the two can carry different items and prices.

• Ordering ahead is tied to a booking, so the kitchen can prepare in advance.

• A menu spanning venues in different Square accounts must name the venue that takes the money. Until it does, the menu editor warns that a basket spanning those venues cannot be paid.

• The collecting venue does not have to serve the menu. A head-office account can take the money for a food hall and let the kitchens fulfil.

• The allergen filter reads the allergens recorded on each item in Square, and tells guests so on screen. It cannot see what happens in the kitchen or options added to a dish, so keep Square up to date and keep your own allergen process. See what syncs with Square.

• Guests see the same menu, in the same colours, when they pre-order for a group booking.

See also:

• The live table view

• Bills, splitting and settling

• How it works

• Available actions

• Group pre-orders

• Building a menu

• Orders