Restaurant waiter app: take orders at the table, keep your till
The waiter's own phone is the handheld. An order taken at the table goes straight to the station that cooks it, with no paper pad and nothing shouted across the pass. When it is ready, the waiter holding that table is told. The bill is still settled on the till you already have.
Why it matters
A paper order pad fails three times: when the order is written, when it is carried to the kitchen, and when somebody reads it wrong. Once the plate is up, it waits under the lamp until someone happens to walk past. The handhelds sold with a new till fix the first of those, and they usually come with the new till attached.
Gueridon does the ordering and leaves the till alone. It is not a POS and issues no receipts, so there is no terminal to replace and nothing to buy: the waiter app runs in the browser of any phone or tablet.
How an order runs
The waiter claims their tables
At the start of the shift each waiter takes the tables they are working, from their own phone. Every order on those tables is theirs, and a table nobody has claimed falls back to whoever covers that section.
They order at the table
The waiter picks dishes from the venue's menu and adds them to the table at menu price. Nothing is copied out for the kitchen and nothing is read back across the room. Today each dish goes in at its cheapest option with no extras: sizes, extras and required choices are chosen on the guest's own phone menu.
Each line goes to its station
Pizzas to the oven, mains to the kitchen, drinks to the bar. Every item carries a station, so one order splits itself between everyone who has to cook part of it.
Each screen shows only its own work
A tablet or a TV per station, pinned to what it serves: the bar sees drinks, the oven sees pizzas. A screen with no station pinned becomes the pass and sees everything.
Ready means all of it
Each station marks its own part. The order turns Ready only when every station has reported, and until then the ticket names the one it is still waiting on.
The right waiter is told
When it is ready, whoever holds the table hears about it: a banner that stays on screen, with a chime, repeated at five and at ten minutes if the plate is still sitting there.
And the till?
It stays. Gueridon is not connected to any till and does not need to be.
On your till
- The receipt
- Card payments
- Fiscal reporting, where your country requires it
- The end-of-day close
In Gueridon
The menu, the orders, the stations, the waiter alerts, the table's running bill, bookings, stock and shifts.
Today the handover is by hand: at the end of the meal the waiter opens the table in Gueridon, reads the total and keys it into the till. It is the same step as with a paper pad, on a total that is already added up.
Guests can order too
With the code on the table, a guest orders from their own phone, in their own language, when they are ready instead of when somebody walks past. The order lands on the same screens and the same table bill, and the waiter brings it like any other plate. Anyone who would rather order out loud still can. More on the guest side: mobile ordering and the digital menu.
Common questions
Do we need dedicated handhelds?
No. The waiter app runs in the browser of any phone or tablet, and the kitchen display on a tablet or TV you already have. Nothing to install.
Do we have to replace our POS?
No. Gueridon is not a POS and issues no receipts. Your till stays as it is, and the bill is settled on it.
Does Gueridon send the order to our POS?
No. There is no POS integration today. The waiter reads the table's total in Gueridon and keys it into the till.
Can the waiter choose sizes and extras?
Not today. From the waiter app each dish goes in at its cheapest option, with no extras and no note. Sizes, extras and required choices are chosen on the guest's QR menu, which lands on the same stations and the same bill.
Can guests pay on their phone?
Not yet. The table's bill is settled with staff as today. This line will change when phone payment is live.
Is there a printed kitchen ticket?
Orders arrive on a screen: each station has its own tablet or TV, and there is no print step in the flow.
What if the internet drops?
The kitchen display reconnects on its own and fetches everything it missed. While it is disconnected it says so, instead of showing an old queue as if it were current.
Can a table move to another waiter mid-service?
Yes, but the waiter taking it over has to give a reason: the move credits everything ordered afterwards to them, so it is logged and the colleague who lost the table is told.
A station runs out of something. What happens?
A manager pauses the station from the display, and new items stop routing to it until it is resumed.
What language is the app in?
The waiter app and the admin are in English. The guest menu reads in up to five of 40 languages per venue.