Good day Sellers! 👋
We’re excited to announce the launch of Square for Restaurants mobile POS, which brings you the ability to take table-side orders and payments with Square for Restaurants on Square Terminal (and soon to the new Restaurant Mobile POS kit).
How does this help you?
- Turn tables faster and increase server efficiency with intuitive tableside ordering and payments.
- Give your servers more time to interact with their diners and provide best-in-class service.
- Keep tabs on your VIPs with up-to-the-minute diner preferences, order history, and server notes.
- Keep service running smoothly with your staff always in the know of what’s selling and what’s about to sell out.
- Keep diners safe with the flexibility to order and pay how they want.
- Get orders out quickly and accurately with tableside, curbside, online, and delivery orders streamlined on one powerful handheld device.
- Keep your kitchen efficient and your line cooks and expeditors in sync with the ability to course, fire, sequence, and throttle orders accurately based on prep time and order source.
- Keep lines moving, and empower your servers to take orders on the go. Completely eliminate the back and forth from the table to the countertop POS.
Frankie DiCarlatnonio of the Scaffidi Restaurant Group says diners ordered additional rounds of alcohol due to the speed of ordering and preparation, resulting in a 22% increase in alcohol sales since implementing the use of a tableside POS.
“With the layout of our restaurant, Mobile POS is saving a lot of physical steps, which has increased staff satisfaction and alleviated some of the stress on their positions,” says DiCarlantonio. “We're seeing a lot of additional efficiency in our operations because our staff are spending more and more time on the floor rather than out of reach putting in orders.”
- Frankie DiCarlatnonio
How to Set Up your Square for Restaurants mobile POS?
Square for Restaurants mobile POS is currently available on Square Terminal.
- Before you start using Square Terminal with Restaurants mobile POS, walk through these software update instructions.
- Learn more about pricing, available features, and getting set up with our Square for Restaurants mobile POS Get Started Guide.
If you need additional handheld devices for your team, visit the Square Shop to order more Square Terminals or to get notified about the Mobile POS kit (coming soon). Keep an eye on the Seller Community for updates, as well.
What is the pricing for Restaurants Mobile POS?
Sellers will need either the free 30-day trial or the paid subscription of Square for Restaurants Plus in order to use Restaurants mobile POS. The Square for Restaurants Free plan does not allow sellers to use the mobile POS.
Sellers can use Square for Restaurants mobile POS on unlimited handheld devices for $0 per month until January 15, 2023* as long as they have a Restaurants Plus subscription. After the promotional period ends, sellers will be charged $50 per month per location to use Square for Restaurants mobile POS on unlimited devices - this will be on top of their Square for Restaurants Plus subscription.
If you need additional handheld devices for your team, visit the Square Shop to order more Square Terminals or the Mobile POS kit (coming soon).
*Limited Time Offer: Until 1/15/23, use Square for Restaurants mobile POS software on unlimited handheld devices for $0. A $50 per month per location fee applies starting on 1/16/23. Terms and conditions apply. Limited time offer valid through 1/15/2023 11:59pm PST. Eligible sellers will receive $0 per month pricing for using unlimited Square Terminal and Restaurant Mobile POS kit devices within the US during the promotional period, inclusive of all fees and taxes, and will then be automatically migrated to the standard $50 per month upon conclusion of the promotional period, unless the seller elects to opt out of using the product. All sellers will be notified via email prior to the end of the promotional period with the option to opt-out before being migrated to standard pricing. To avail yourself of this offer, activation of the Square for Restaurants Plus plan is required. You must be signed into your own account. Square reserves the right to modify, revoke, or cancel the offer at any time. Void where prohibited, not redeemable for cash, and non-transferable.
Are there any features with Square for Restaurants not supported on Square Terminal?
The following features are unavailable on Square Terminal but are coming soon:
- Reopening closed checks
- Splitting checks by item
For more information on Square for Restaurants mobile POS, check out these resources:
How will this new feature help your business? Let us know in the comments below! 👇
Hey @Ryan_M. This looks really great at first glance in overview/test mode! While I won’t be using it as a “tableside” device, per se, you have given me reason to change my hardware needs for next season. I’m planning to switch to Square for Restaurants on a newly purchased Register, mostly because of the more compact and navigable presentation of modifiers. I’m now considering retaining one of my Terminals to use during festivals and other special events. Its purpose would be to speed up the ordering line at the service window by taking orders for people who are paying by card/contactless instead of cash. It would definitely cut the wait time to order down during the stupid crazy times of those events!
This seems to be a definite plus for my operation at certain times. I’ll say that I really love the modifier presentation on the terminal where I can spend less time scrolling and just go to the modifier list I need to change and change it!
I can’t stress enough that I really love the more streamlined flow to add an item to a check. At first, I thought it was going to force me to do the required modifiers first, until I realized that I could swipe down and be presented with a compact list of all modifiers so that I could choose them in whatever order I needed. That’s a huge plus in my shop, since customers don’t always follow my preferred script of “size, soft serve base, flavors, toppings, etc” but rather they give them to me as makes sense in their twisted, illogical minds! LOL. That’s a big reason I’m switching to Restaurants, anyway, because it gives me much more flexibility to make the customers feel like they are calling the shots. Illusion in customer service is everything!
@Ryan_M I’ll also say that with this new option, you are giving me serious reasons to consider whether or not I even need Register. I could opt for a couple of mobile POS instead (maybe the new Mobile POS Kit if it is released before my 2023 season starts, and greatly reduce clutter and costs! Hmmmmmm..
Hey @Ryan_M. I was doing some testing today and think I found one possible bug.
See screen shot below. I have my tip settings to collect tips on a separate tipping screen. However, this mobile POS does not show a tipping screen. I had expected this to work just like connected terminal and show a screen to collect tips. Instead it printed the receipt shown below and I had to settle the tip manually. I thought that maybe I should change my signature & receipt option to collect signatures and then collect tips on signature screen, but that didn’t work either. There doesn’t seem to be a way to force tips to be collected on the device. Did I miss something?
If not, then it seems that the mobile POS is going to actually add another step since the server is going to have to go back and adjust tips manually at the end of the night. I’m assuming this wasn’t your intention, was it?
That’s fine. No urgency. I’m just trying a few options out before I settle on what I’m going to use next season. I will say that I really want this mobile POS to work for me — the interface is quite good and it is speeding up our order taking, even at the window. Have a great weekend!
@Ryan_M I’m guessing that your product team checked this out and found a bug. Today I was messing around with some things and noticed that when I entered a test check and dipped a card to pay the tip screen appeared. I just cancelled out of the payment since it was a test. But it seems to be working perfectly now!
Thanks to whoever (or to the ghosts in the software! lol) for correcting this! Now I just have to get a separate issue with Square KDS resolved (I posted about that in the KDS beta board, complete with lots of pictures! Ha). After that, it’s starting to look like I have the perfect minimalist hardware configuration for my little ice cream shop! I’ll say it again — whoever designed the user interface for this is nothing short of a genius, and probably very underpaid!
Oh, and having said that, I found a small bug that needs to be quashed. I’ll make a video of it and post it here shortly. It’s nothing earth shattering.
Thanks!
@Ryan_M Here’s a video of the little bug that needs to be eradicated. I won’t explain here. I narrated the video! Let’s me know if I need to clarify anything!
Hi @Ryan_M. I’ve got a new one for you on this. First, you should have a Support Ledger and a Diagnostic Report from my Restaurants mPos. We’ve had a decent day, nothing stellar. At around 55 sales today, the terminal started lagging between screens. Swiping was jittery — it would stop mid swipe, pause, then go on. Switching to modifier lists and back was very slow to respond. Even after choosing a new item to add to the check, it would take 1-2 seconds before moving on. I finally decided to reboot the terminal, and then it was fine.
I’m not sure if it helped to send those files after rebooting, but hopefully they will reveal something. It seemed to me like a buffer was full, or memory was full/overflowing/creating exceptions. Something wasn’t right, but the reboot seemed to fix it.
