Forty tables and one bar
The sun comes out on a Saturday and the garden is full by one. Every table is waiting for someone to fight through to the bar. The queue runs out of the side door. People who wanted a second round decide not to bother. Food orders arrive at the bar mixed in with drinks, and the kitchen gets a slip with a table number that turns out to be a table inside, not in the garden.
Staff carry trays out and walk round shouting table numbers, because the numbering on the garden tables was painted years ago and half have faded. By four, some tables have been waiting forty minutes for food.
Why the garden overwhelms the bar
Most pubs are designed around a bar that serves the inside. The garden is extra capacity that only matters on some days, so it has no system of its own. On those days, all of its demand has to come through a bar built for a smaller crowd, and the queue is the result.
Table ordering apps exist, and some pubs used them during the pandemic and then dropped them because they were clunky, did not match the till, or created a separate stream of orders the bar could not see. The problem was not the idea, but how it connected to the rest of the pub.
What the queue costs on a sunny day
| Problem | Effect |
|---|---|
| Long bar queue | Fewer rounds per table |
| Food ordered at a busy bar | Orders lost or sent to the wrong table |
| Faded or missing table numbers | Runners wandering with trays |
| Staff stuck behind the bar | Tables not cleared, glasses not collected |
| No view of garden demand | Rota not matched to sunny days |
Good weekends are where a pub makes up for quiet weeks. A garden that cannot be served quickly leaves that trade on the table.
The inside suffers as well. Regulars at the bar wait behind a queue of garden customers ordering six drinks and four meals at a time, and the people who keep you going through February are the ones who give up and go home early on the best day of the summer.
Ordering from the garden table
- Each garden table gets a weatherproof QR code and a clear number. Scanning it opens an ordering page with that table already selected.
- The menu and prices come from your EPOS, so what customers see matches the bar. Items can be hidden from table ordering, such as cask ales that need a word with the barman, if you prefer.
- Customers pay by card, Apple Pay or Google Pay through your payment provider. Groups can order separately from the same table.
- Drinks orders print or appear at a service point on the bar, food orders go to the kitchen, both with the table number and a simple description.
- Runners see ready orders on a screen or handheld, with a map of the garden, and mark them delivered.
- Orders are posted to your EPOS, so garden sales appear in your normal reports and stock.
Where your EPOS supplier already offers a table ordering module that connects properly, we may recommend setting that up rather than building. We check first.
The next sunny Saturday
Customers sit down and scan the code on the table. Rounds are ordered without anyone leaving their seat, and food goes straight to the kitchen with the right table number. The bar queue is shorter because many garden orders never reach it. Runners carry trays to the right table first time.
- Garden orders without a bar queue
- Food orders going straight to the kitchen
- Clear table numbers and a runner's map
- Garden sales recorded in your EPOS
Does your garden look like this on a sunny day?
- The bar queue runs outside when the garden is full.
- Food orders for the garden get lost or delayed.
- Table numbers in the garden are faded or missing.
- You tried table ordering before and it did not connect to the till.
- Tables order fewer rounds because the queue is long.