Kitchen Workflows for Square Online To-Go Orders for Small Cafe?

[TessC]

I would love to connect with another small cafe that is using Square online to take to-go orders. We see this as a way to grow revenue, as we have capacity issues for in-cafe seating. However, my kitchen team is concerned about being overwhelmed managing sit-down and to-go orders during busy times. Any lessons learned for implementation, workflows, and/or concerns about Square online itself? 

[ScoopDogg]

We are not a café — we’re a small dairy bar. With online ordering, you can set up time slots and assign prep times for each menu item. If a customer orders something that takes longer to prepare, the system will automatically extend the pickup window. In your POS, you can also mark when you’re getting busy, which will adjust the available time slots or even temporarily pause online orders altogether.

[ScoopDogg]

I forgot to mention — as KayTeaStudio pointed out as well — we use two large KDS TV screens. I’ve configured each one to route the appropriate products to the correct stations so everything is prepared in the proper order. For example, I have a food kitchen, and a front staff that handles all the ice cream, shakes, and drinks. All food orders display on the kitchen screen, while all ice cream and drink items appear on the front screen. The only exception is DoorDash orders — for those, the ice cream ticket prints up front, and a full ticket prints in the kitchen so the food is ready for the driver.

[uniwebdigital]

Nice setup! Do you mind sharing what TV screens you purchased to work with the KDS system? Thanks! 

[KayTeaStudio]

I own a boba store so not exactly the same concept as a cafe with food

but I highly recommend having the KDS to organize flow and know what to work on and prioritize. I have one in the line and also one at the very end when packing. There’s also the text to let the customer know the order is complete which has been great

Square Online does make it so that if someone places an order they try to not let people order within the same time slot but I don’t think it accounts for in person order. But like ScoopDogg mentioned you can adjust or pause if it gets too busy from the KDS. 

Besides using tech like KDS make sure you really think about the flow of your kitchen / bar.

When we first opened we crisscrossed paths and went back and forth so many times that making each order took 2X as long and was a chaotic mess (leads get way more stressed). Once we were finally able to optimize even if there were a lot of tickets they ran smoothly and more organized.

I think back to the time where I read a Reddit post that said before opening any kind of restaurant draw a line on where each employee station is and see how often they cross each other path or even walk back and forth to make an order. Instead it should just be a straight line to complete the order. Once we got something like that optimized the store runs much more smoothly

[foodtrucker]

so they get a little busier who cares this is your business…. inseating takes  priority over on line orders.  

if you get so busy that your kitchen is overwhelmed at a staff member either way it’s win-win and you can always turn off the online ordering if you start getting too busy   

[tsellison]

I don't seem to recall, but is there an additional cost to turning on the online ordering? We have online ordering through a different provider & it's integrated into Square but it's not working out like I would prefer.

[ScoopDogg]

I think the only cost is if you choose to addon a domain name and do upgrade options. 

[foodtrucker]

no its our website so thats $25 or $35 a month i believe…. 

[uniwebdigital]

@tsellison You can use Online ordering for free, but yes to connect to a domain name you do have to upgrade the plus plan which is $29/mo as shown here - https://squareup.com/us/en/online-store/plans

You get more customization options, but overall the free version does all that you need
https://squareup.com/us/en/online-ordering

[adamp29]

Re: concerns - if you're making extra money from to-go orders, then you can expand the team to cope. If the stress is about speed of prep (seated might wait longer?) then that might require a slight change in menu or meal prep?

[Yankton_Store]

Because the question was about work flows, I'll add a variation we are using... on my square for restaurants register and handheld terminal I have setup on our seating chart map 5 togo tables "Togo1" "Togo2" etc.  This gives a place to set an order visually and helps staff know where to look on the square for restaurants register as they are taking walkins or phone orders.  This helps us keep them straight from the tickets on the KDS screens that automatically populate for online orders.  We also keep a separate (cheap!) "expediter" tablet (any google/android tablet can run the KDS app) right next to the restaurant register so that they can easily lookup tickets in process or recently closed while they are checking folks out.

Definitely experiment with the number of orders you are willing to accept in each 15 min block time.  And definitely color code each order type separately and educate the staff about what they mean so they can prioritize inhouse vs online etc.