Forty parties, forty different lists
By the end of October, the festive diary is filling up. Office parties of eight, twelve, twenty. Each is on your set festive menu, and you have asked for pre-orders a week before. What arrives is a mix: a neat spreadsheet from one organiser, a photo of a handwritten list from another, a long email thread from a third where two people changed their minds, and nothing at all from a fourth until the day before.
Someone, usually the manager, retypes all of it into a sheet for the kitchen, counts starters, mains and desserts for each day, and prints something for the servers so they know who ordered what. It is a lot of evening hours in the busiest month of the year.
Pre-orders are collected in the organiser's format, not yours
The restaurant knows exactly what it needs: each guest's choice for each course, any dietary requirement, and a way to match a plate to a seat. But the collection is left to the organiser, who is doing it on top of their own job and uses whatever tool they have.
- Every party sends pre-orders in a different format.
- Changes arrive late and in separate messages.
- Dietary requirements are mixed in with menu choices, or missed.
- Kitchen totals for each day are added up by hand across many parties.
A worked example: a party of fourteen sends their list on Tuesday. On Thursday the organiser emails to say two people are now vegetarian and one has dropped out. The kitchen sheet was already printed on Wednesday. Unless the change is spotted and the sheet reprinted, the kitchen preps the wrong mains and the server takes a turkey to someone who ordered the vegetarian option.
The December cost of doing it by hand
Retyping pre-orders takes hours from the people you most need on the floor and in the kitchen in December. Mistakes mean wrong prep quantities, wasted food and awkward moments at the table. Late or missing pre-orders mean the kitchen guesses, and a party that orders on the night slows a set-menu service for the whole room.
The organiser has a hard time too, chasing colleagues and passing messages back and forth, which is not the impression you want them to take back to the office.
How we build festive pre-orders
- Each party booking gets its own pre-order link, set up from your festive menus and the number of guests booked.
- The organiser can fill in choices for everyone, or share the link so each guest picks their own starter, main and dessert and notes any dietary requirement.
- The organiser sees who has and has not chosen, and can send a reminder to those missing.
- Choices close at the cut-off you set. Late changes after the cut-off come to you as a request rather than changing the order silently.
- The kitchen gets a prep sheet per day with totals by dish across all parties, and a sheet per party.
- Front of house gets a table plan per party with each seat's choices and dietary notes, ready to print or show on a tablet.
| Output | Who uses it | What it shows |
|---|---|---|
| Daily prep totals | Kitchen | Every dish across every party that day |
| Party sheet | Kitchen and pass | Choices and notes for one party |
| Seat plan | Servers | Who ordered what, by seat |
| Missing pre-orders | Manager | Parties and guests still to choose |
Dietary and allergy notes are passed to your team exactly as the guest wrote them. How your kitchen handles them follows your own procedures.
December with the pre-orders sorted
Pre-orders arrive in your format, whatever the organiser's habits. The manager checks the few parties still missing choices rather than retyping forty lists. The kitchen preps from totals it can trust, and servers carry plates to the right seats.
Deposits and payments can be linked in if you take them, but the main gain is simply that the information is right and in one place.
Signs your festive season needs this
- Pre-orders arrive as spreadsheets, photos and email threads.
- Someone retypes them into kitchen sheets in the evenings.
- Late changes are missed and the wrong plates go out.
- Kitchen totals for busy days are added up by hand.
- Parties arrive without pre-orders and order on the night.