Two new ways to serve your customers

Until now, service location owners have had two ways to serve food and drinks to their visitors: placing them in public containers, or offering a basic service where an employee takes the customer’s order, collects it from the business’s stock, and delivers it in person.

With this release, owners can choose between two new service types: Dine-in and Take-away. Both come with a few additional requirements. You’ll need to furnish your business with some new items, which we’ll cover below, and make sure your employees cover the work priorities needed to keep the service running smoothly.

In return, you’ll have greater control over how your business operates. The tasks involved in these new services don’t have to fall to a single employee, giving you the flexibility to divide the work however you see fit. You could, for example, hire one or more cooks to focus on preparing dishes, while your waiters take orders, bring food to tables, and clear away any leftovers. By adjusting the number of employees assigned to each task, you can fine-tune your staffing to suit the needs of your business.

New furniture

To offer either of the new services, your business will need at least one of each of the following:

Kitchen Ticket Board

This is where customer orders appear, ready for the kitchen to prepare. Whenever a customer orders food or a drink, a new ticket is added automatically, and the next available cook will collect it and handle the order.

If the ordered item isn’t in stock and a kitchen is available, the cook will start preparing it. That means you won’t need to worry about keeping every dish on your menu in stock—just make sure you have the ingredients needed to make it.

The Kitchen Ticket Board also gives you an overview of all open orders. Simply hover over it to see which are waiting and which are already being prepared.

Pickup Counter

Pickup Counters are special containers where prepared food waits before reaching the customer. They come in two versions: Pickup Counter and Pickup Counter with Shelf.

For Take-away service, customers collect their orders directly from the counter, so it must be placed in a public room. For Dine-in service, it acts as the kitchen pass, where cooks leave prepared dishes for waiters to collect and bring to the tables.

Work priorities

Several work priorities contribute to the new services, including two new ones:

• Take Order: Employees with this priority take customers’ orders, speaking directly to Take-away customers or approaching Dine-in customers at their tables once they’re seated.

• Bring to Counter: Usually assigned to cooks, this priority involves bringing prepared food to the Pickup Counter.

Some existing priorities also play a part:

• Clean: If food is left on a counter or table—perhaps because a customer has left without it—someone will need to clear it away.

• Produce: Employees with this priority collect tickets from the Kitchen Ticket Board and prepare the food if needed.

• Serve: Waiters with this priority bring food to customers at their tables.

A typical staffing setup for these businesses might look like this:

• Waiter: Take Order + Clean + Serve

• Cook: Produce + Bring to Counter

Dinner with friends

Shall we have dinner together? With Dine-in service, Seedlings can now share a table and enjoy a meal together. When a Seedling adds another to a Schedule block for a restaurant visit, they’ll both sit at the same table.

We can’t wait to see the unique spaces you create and watch your Seedlings enjoy their new places to eat!