Most restaurants that take orders online end up with two menus: the one on the register and the one on the website. They drift apart a little every week. A price goes up on one and not the other, a special never makes it online, and the thing you sold out of at 7pm keeps getting ordered until 9.
Two menus means double the work and double the mistakes
Every change has to be made twice, by hand. On a busy week, the website loses. Customers order at the old price, or order something you took off months ago, and the kitchen or the front of house has to call them and sort it out.
That phone call costs you more than the time. It costs you the customer's good mood, right before they taste the food.
Keep one menu, on the register
Your register, the point of sale system at the counter, is where your menu is already most accurate. It is what your staff ring up all day. If a price is wrong there, you hear about it fast.
So make the register the one place you change the menu, and let the website follow it. Change a price once, add a special once, and it shows up everywhere.
Sold out should mean sold out everywhere
When the kitchen runs out of something, someone marks it on the register. That should be the end of it. If the website keeps selling it, you get orders you cannot fill, refunds, and an unhappy customer standing at the pickup counter.
The fix is to have the website read sold-out status from the register, so one tap at the till stops it selling online too.
Ordering on your own site vs the delivery apps
Delivery and marketplace apps can bring in new customers. They also take a cut of each order, and they usually keep the customer's details. The person who ordered from you through an app is often the app's customer, not yours.
Online ordering on your own website works differently. The customer finds you, orders from you, and their name and number end up on your customer list. Next time you have a special, you can tell them directly.
- Put an order button on your own site, front and center
- Use the apps for reach if they work for you, but steer regulars to your site
- Tell people at the counter and on your receipts where to order direct
How MinerOp handles this
MinerOp syncs your menu from your register to online ordering on your own restaurant website. When an item is marked sold out on the till, it stops selling online. Tell us which register you run and we confirm the connection before you change anything.
Orders placed on your site land in your own account, so the customer is on your list. Customers can opt in to a text when their order is ready, and you can send email and text campaigns to your customer list when you have something worth sharing.
- Menu sync from your register to your website
- Sold out on the till stops selling online
- Online ordering on your own website
- Order-ready texts for customers who opt in
Questions owners ask
Should I quit the delivery apps?
Not necessarily. They can be a good way to get found. Just make sure your own site is the easiest place for regulars to order, so more of those orders, and those customers, stay with you.
Does it matter which register I run?
The idea holds for any register: one menu, kept in one place. Tell us which one you run and we will confirm what the connection looks like before you change anything.
Who should be allowed to mark items sold out?
Whoever is closest to the problem, usually the kitchen lead or the person on the register. Make it part of the routine when something runs low.