Three tablets, three chimes and one person on the counter
It is seven on a Friday. There is a Deliveroo tablet propped against the till, an Uber Eats tablet on a stand next to it and a Just Eat printer chattering away at the end of the counter. Each one chimes differently. Each one needs a tap to accept, and if nobody taps in time, the order is rejected and the app quietly marks you down for it.
Whoever is on the counter is also answering the phone, bagging orders and handing them to riders who are leaning on the counter asking which one is theirs. When an order is accepted, it is read out to the kitchen or keyed into the till so a ticket prints in the usual format, because the chefs are used to the till ticket and the app printouts all look different.
Somewhere around half eight an order gets accepted on one tablet and never makes it to the kitchen. The rider waits, the customer rings the app, and the app refunds them at your expense.
Why the tablets multiply
Each delivery app wants you to use its own device because that is how it controls acceptance, timings and ratings. Nobody sets out to have three. You sign up with one, then a second approaches you, then a third, and each installation comes with its own tablet, charger and login. By the time you notice, the counter is a gadget shelf.
The deeper problem is that none of those tablets talks to your till or your kitchen. The order exists in the app, and the only bridge to the people cooking it is a person reading from a screen. Busy nights are exactly when that person has the least attention to spare, so the bridge fails when it matters most.
Your till supplier may offer a link to one app but not the others, or charge separately for each. That leaves you half-integrated, which can be more confusing than not integrated at all, because staff are never sure which orders print by themselves.
What the tablet shuffle is really costing
| Where it goes wrong | What you see on the night |
|---|---|
| Missed acceptance | Orders auto-rejected while the counter is busy |
| Rekeying | Wrong extras or a missed side on the kitchen ticket |
| Lost ticket | An accepted order nobody cooked, refunded at your cost |
| Mixed formats | Chefs reading three different ticket layouts |
| Rider confusion | Bags handed to the wrong rider for the wrong app |
There is also the slower cost. Rejected and late orders affect how the apps rank you, which affects how many orders you see next week. And the one experienced person who can keep the tablets under control becomes the only person who can run the counter, which makes every rota harder.
One order screen, one kitchen ticket
What we build takes orders from each app into a single place, then sends them to the kitchen in one layout. It sits alongside your till and your apps rather than replacing them.
- We connect to each delivery app through its official partner integration or through an order aggregation service that already has those connections, whichever suits your setup and your app contracts.
- Incoming orders land on one screen with the channel clearly marked, and they can be accepted automatically or with a single tap, so nothing sits unaccepted while the phone is ringing.
- Each order is converted into the same kitchen format, with items grouped by station and modifiers written the way your chefs already read them, then printed or shown on a kitchen screen.
- Where your till allows it, the order is posted to the till so sales reporting includes app orders without anyone keying them in.
- A pickup board shows each order's app, name and order code, so riders can see when theirs is ready without asking.
- If a connection drops, the screen says so loudly and the original tablet stays on as a backup, so you are never blind.
Before building anything we check what your apps, till and any existing aggregator already support. If an off-the-shelf service does most of this and suits your contracts, we tell you, and we only build the missing pieces around it.
A Friday night once it is running
Orders from every app appear in one list and print in one format. The counter person spends their time bagging and talking to riders instead of tapping screens. The kitchen stops asking what a scribbled note means. When an order is late, you can see where it is sitting rather than guessing which tablet it came from.
- One screen to watch instead of three or four
- Kitchen tickets that look the same whatever the channel
- App orders included in your till and end-of-night totals
- Riders who can see their order status without queueing at the counter
The tablets usually stay in a drawer, charged, for the odd night a connection has a problem.
Is your counter like this?
- You have a separate tablet or printer for each delivery app.
- Orders are read out or rekeyed so the kitchen can see them.
- You have had orders auto-rejected because nobody tapped in time.
- At least once a month an accepted order was never cooked.
- Only one or two staff can run the counter on a busy night.