Is there a way to limit item or category availability depending on time of day? ex. Breakfast

[mksavage]

For online ordering, there needs to be a feature that allows restaurants to limit the availability of certain items depending on the time of day. For example, if your breakfast menu is only available until 3pm, there needs to be an option to make these items unavailable after 3pm.

[AshleyK]

Hey! Thanks for taking the time to post this and share your feedback. I've merged your post with an existing thread to help keep all this feedback in one place. 

[xyz]

OK - so another attempt to provide some info. I struggled with getting the time constraints to work for our cafe - a.m. menu (coffee & lunch) and we're starting pre-ordered/prepaid take home dinners for PM. Full menu is not avail for dinner time.

Soooo many issues with prep times, operating hours, trying to set time constraints to categories..... Here is what seems to be working... for the moment.

I set up 2 locations - both with the same address & business info and using same Square account.

In Online : Settings : Pickup & Delivery - One location is called AM/LUNCH MENU - it is set up for pick up - business hours 7:30a-4pm.

The other location is called DINNER MENU - it is set up for pick up - business hours 4pm-6pm.

Next - In Online : Categories I have a Lunch Menu main category - with menu sub categories set up below it.  Under Category Details : Availability it is set to "during all regular business hours (same as pick up/delivery hours)" Per the above set-up - those hours are 7:30a-4p.

Next in the same category settings - I set up a 'Family Style Dinner Meals' - it has availability set to "during all regular business hours" - per the above set up those hours are 4-6pm.

Now... back in your main Square settings - go to your item library - select an item (grilled cheese - only avail for lunch) - open item details - below the item description select 'location' and turn on or off the respective day part of the menu you don't want the item in. In this case Grilled Cheese is turned on for the Lunch Menu and turned off from the Dinner Menu.

After creating a 2nd location - when a customer goes to your page - they should be given an option on which "location" to shop from. Again - only 1 physical location - Mine says AM Lunch Menu Next avail pick up 7:30am Monday" - Right now it's Saturday night - so guests can see and shop full lunch menu options - and they can add the items to their cart. 

As noted by others - the Square notes of ASAP and some time references during check out need fixed on Square's side still. The pick up location noted in the cart also says Monday after 7:30am.

When the guest then proceeds to the cart - after entering their contact info - of course the ASAP is ticked - but below that option is Schedule For Later - The available days of the week in the drop down should match your business days of the week. Below that - the available pick up times should match with your business hours during the week. In this case I can add a Grilled Cheese sandwich for lunch on Monday at 9:55am - and I am placing the order on Saturday night.

If I then go back to the beginning of the order page and begin a new order - this time selecting the Dinner Menu location that was created - it says "pre-order available - next pick up Monday 4pm".

Selecting the dinner menu and choosing one of the Family Style dinner meals and adding it to the cart - the cart reminds me 'pick up Monday after 4pm'

Proceeding to check out and entering buyer data - again ASAP is pre-ticked as the pick up choice (meaning 4pm)  but selecting the "Schedule For Later" option brings up the available business operational days of the week - and the available pick up times are from 4pm-6pm - which matches the category settings from above.

These test orders were staged on Saturday night - outside of normal operating hours. I did struggle with settings where orders could not be placed after business hours on a Monday for Tuesday service - but the above settings seem to have corrected that.

Hope this was not to confusing and maybe helped someone. I don't have much hair left after rolling out these changes. 🙂

[LordPies]

Impressive attempt at tryign to make this website work for  you. It seems like a simple solution of moving "schedule for later" as a modifier option that's also a required selection (already exists as per modifier settings) would have fixed your problems as well as mine. 

I'm still having this problem where I cannot ever get the site to line up with picking up orders on a later date. I'm a bakery that promotes products to be picked up on a specific day (Fridays only, or December 24th but not on Christmas Day), instead, it operates on linear from the date of ordering (ex: 1 day, 2 day etc)

[xyz]

LordPies

Yeah - I was using the forced modifiers for "pick a day of the week" and "pick a time" - so the item in their cart would say "Fajita Bar - Tuesday 1/1/99 - 5:15pm"...... but then when they check out - Square defaults to ASAP (confusing) and then Square would let them pick any of our operating hours (7:30am-4pm) when this meal was only available 4pm-6pm... to confusing....

I could see the challenges of selling on only one specific date - you would have to make a "Pie" location - with business hours of Friday only x:xx am - x:xx pm and shoppers would have to select that particular menu to shop from. Which means they couldn't order a pie and a loaf of bread on the same order.... doh!

Good luck!

[LordPies]

Yeah, I strongly believe that Square's development team just seems to think that restaurants only operate with a set menu that's availble every day, ready to be made as soon as you order. 

The only workaround with the fact that the email notifications and orders always say a different pickup date due to the turnaround settings, is to go into your email template and put in giant disclaimer at the top of the email in big red text like i did. 

The one thing that the email notifications got correct, it shows the modifiers they selected right next to the picture of their orders. So, I pointed out in the red text, warning them that "your order will be ready by:" is incorrect due to Square settings and we can't chage it. The actual correct info is lower in the email next to the picture of their order. 

Is it unprofessional? Sure, but at least we can point out that their email did say the correct answer right there. We still get a handful of really angry customers that drove a hour or more to find out that their order was not on the right day/time becuase they didn't read these big red letters. That's kinda on them, but really, its mostly on Square since they're the ones that made this exceptionally hard to use since they integrated with weebly and cannot prioritize this kind of fix. I'm still bemused it is this hard for them to prioritize such an important fact of running a business: taking orders for pickup on a different, specific date.

Like.... holiday orders amirtie?  

[marascafe]

Just to make sure I'm understanding what you're saying--if I wanted to have a different menu for every day of the week, I could just set different location names, and assign the proper menu items to those location names? 

[LordPies]

Technically, you don't always need to make a new location name. Each product item has the ability to have their own turnaround settings individually. 

Now the challenge here is whether the product will be up on the site, available to buy, or availalbe to pickup at the correct times. 

[xyz]

Marascafe

Under Online : Items : Categories - you can designate a different category for each day of the week and set hours available for each of those menus.

The challenge is getting the settings & availability times from there to align with your business hours of operation and your item prep times.

The ultimate goal would be to have all the menus visible 24/7 - with the ability for customers to place an order in advance for a future date. For example - view your Tuesday menu on Monday - then place the order on Monday for Tuesday pick up at a specific time.

There are so many settings that have to align to get it to work that way if that is your ultimate goal.

[sugarlab]

This sounds like an awesome feature but it's not an option for me. There's no section for it when I edit the category. Did it go away?

[Troop52]

https://troop-52.square.site/product/chili-meal/18?cs=true