The Waiter App

The waiter app is the phone tool your floor staff use during service. It shows every table at a glance, handles bills and payments, and pings a waiter the moment the kitchen has food ready or a guest needs help. It's a web app you can add to the phone's home screen, and you'll find it at /w/your-restaurant-slug.

Logging in

Waiters sign in at /w/your-restaurant-slug/login with a username and password. They don't sign themselves up. You, the admin, create each waiter's login on the Staff page, then hand them the username and password. That keeps your floor accounts under your control.

The live table grid

Once logged in, a waiter sees a live grid of every table. Each table shows its status so a waiter knows where to go without walking the floor.

• Free: nobody's seated, or the last order is closed.
• Occupied: there's an active, unpaid order on the table.
• Bill requested: the guest has asked for the bill.

Tap any table to open it. The waiter sees the order, the items, the total, and the payment status, so they have the full picture before they walk over.

Handling bills and payments

From a table, a waiter can request the bill when a guest is ready to pay. When payment comes in, they mark the order paid, which closes it and frees the table on the grid.

A waiter can also cancel a single item off an order, say a dish the kitchen can't make. Cancelling an item needs a reason note, so there's a record of why. If you track stock for that item, the cancel puts the portion back into inventory. One limit: you can't cancel an item on an order that's already been marked paid.

Staff calls

When a guest taps for help in the chat, that's a staff call. It shows up in the waiter app, and a waiter can dismiss it once they've gone over to the table. So a guest who wants water or a refill gets a waiter's attention without flagging anyone down.

Notifications keep waiters moving

The app pushes a notification to the waiter's phone in two cases:

• When the kitchen marks an order Ready, so a runner picks up the food fast.
• When a guest sends a staff call, so help reaches the table quickly.

These come from the kitchen board and the guest chat, so the floor stays in sync with the kitchen without anyone watching a screen the whole shift.

FAQ

How do I add a waiter?

You add waiters on the Staff page in your admin dashboard. Create a username and password for each one, then share those details with the waiter. They sign in at /w/your-restaurant-slug/login. Waiters can't create their own accounts, so every login stays under your control.

How does a waiter install the app on their phone?

The waiter app is a web app. Open /w/your-restaurant-slug in the phone's browser, then add it to the home screen. After that it opens like any other app, full screen, and can receive the push notifications for ready orders and guest calls.

What is a staff call?

A staff call is when a guest taps for help in the chat at their table. It appears in the waiter app so a waiter can head over. Once they've handled it, the waiter dismisses the call. It's how guests ask for water, cutlery, or a refill without waving someone down.

What to do next

The waiter app and the kitchen board work as a pair: the kitchen plates the food, marks it Ready, and the waiter gets pinged to run it. Set up both, add your waiters on the Staff page, and your floor and kitchen stay in step all through service.