Group pre-orders
One pre-order for the whole party. The person who booked shares a link, each guest picks their own food from your menu, and your team can see who has chosen, who has paid and who still owes.
When you'd use it
For Christmas parties, birthdays, set-menu nights and any large table where the kitchen needs to know what is coming before the party arrives. It replaces the spreadsheet of choices someone has to chase by email.
How it behaves
A pre-order belongs to a booking. When a booking type has a pre-order menu attached, the guest who booked, the lead, starts the order from their booking confirmation. The same works for an event with a pre-order menu, and ticket holders start theirs from the ticket confirmation page. Guests need no app: everything runs in the browser, on the same menu guests order from at the table, in your venue’s colours.
The lead shares a join link from the top of the order page. Each guest who opens it gets their own page and picks their own dishes, course by course on a set menu. The lead can add guests by name, choose for someone who has not got round to it, and see the whole order on one screen, by guest or by dish. A guest who can no longer come can drop out from their own page.
The menu decides who pays. An order can be confirmed now and paid on the day, paid ahead by the lead for the whole table, or paid ahead by each guest for their own food, with the lead paying for their own share like everyone else. Pre-order payments run through Stripe, separately from any deposit or cancellation charge on the booking.
The order locks at a cut-off you set before the booking, and the page counts down to it. Once a guest has confirmed or paid, their choices are final: changing paid food is a refund, so they contact the venue.
For your team, the pre-order sits on the booking in the Day Planner and under Ordering › Orders, and can be edited from either. On a menu where guests pay for themselves, it says how much is still to collect and from whom, so the team knows exactly who to chase. Anyone who has not chosen yet owes nothing, so they are not on that list.
When service comes, print the front-of-house run sheet, with each guest’s dishes under their name, and the kitchen totals, with dishes counted per time slot and an allergy list. Print them for one party or for the whole day, and check a preview before anything reaches the printer.
Configuration and options
- Pre-order menu
- A menu attached to a booking type, or to an event, that guests order from ahead of the visit.
- Who pays
- Confirm now and pay on the day, the lead pays ahead for everyone, or each guest pays ahead for their own food.
- Join link
- One link the lead shares so each guest can add their own food.
- Cut-off
- How long before the booking the order locks. The page counts down to it.
- Set menus
- Courses chosen one at a time, laid out the way the menu is written.
- Who to chase
- Paid and outstanding amounts against each guest, on a menu where guests pay for themselves.
- Run sheet and kitchen totals
- Dishes by guest for front of house; dish counts per time slot with allergy flags for the kitchen.
- Email the order
- Send the pre-order to the people you choose from the order itself.
Good to know
Pre-order payments run through Stripe, whatever till your venue uses.
A guest who has paid cannot remove themselves or change their food. Refunds go through the venue.
Allergy flags on the printed sheets come from allergen options, item notes, booking messages and booking tags. They support the kitchen’s own checks; they do not replace them.
A pre-order cancelled before anything is paid leaves the booking itself in place.
A party too big to sell blind can start as an enquiry-only event or booking type, then choose its food once it is booked.