How to Enable Tableside Ordering at Your Restaurant for Free

Tableside ordering has become increasingly popular in the last couple of years and with good reason. It helps restaurants increase table turnover and provides customers with a more streamlined ordering experience at the table.

Below, we show you how easy it is to enable tableside ordering at your restaurant for free.

What Is Tableside Ordering?

Tableside ordering refers to technology that allows restaurant customers to order their food contactless or with limited interaction with a server.

The most popular type of tableside ordering enables foodies to scan a QR code to order food. This comes hand in hand with tableside payment.

What Is Tableside Payment?

To offer customers a complete experience when ordering food at the table, allow them to also pay the check when ordering. This is what tableside payment is.

That way, all there’s left for them to do is enjoy the food without wasting precious time waiting for a server to take their order or for the check to arrive.

5 Benefits of Implementing Scan to Order Technology

1. Serve more customers faster

If you eliminate the back-and-forth of presenting customers with the menu, taking their orders, serving the food, and bringing the check, you can increase table turnover and profits.

The entire dining experience will run smoothly, and you can focus on cooking the food, clearing tables, and ensuring customers are having a good time.

2. Make changes to the menu on the fly

One of the biggest disadvantages of traditional paper menus is that making changes costs you as you have to reprint them every time.

A digital restaurant menu eliminates that problem. You can update menu items, add new delicious dishes, update prices, and add daily specials and promotions in minutes.

3. Enhance the customer experience

Customers appreciate being able to order and pay at the table without too much hassle. The food will arrive faster, and they don’t have to worry about carrying cash.

However, to ensure tableside ordering runs smoothly at your restaurant and customers don’t leave negative reviews, keep the following in mind:

• Don’t get a digital menu QR code that opens a PDF upon scanning. QR stands for quick response so if customers have to download or browse a slow-loading PDF, they won’t have a good experience and you will lose sales.
• Do get an online ordering menu that instantly opens your list of dishes that customers can browse and add to their cart in a simple checkout process.
• In addition, make sure you provide WiFi for customers who can’t or don’t want to use their mobile data to place an order.

4. Boost revenue by upselling and cross-selling

Another huge advantage of digital menu ordering is you can enable and even encourage customers to add extras to their order, thus increasing the average check value.

Add extra toppings to your pizza? Get a side of fries with that burger? Add a dessert to complement the meal? Yes, please!

This is a win-win situation: you sell more, and customers get the option to customize their meals however they want.

Here’s how easy it is to add extras, choices, and add-ons to your digital menu with GloriaFood’s online menu builder:

5. Entice customers with food images and promotions

Traditional paper menus provide little flexibility when it comes to adding food photos or limited-time offers.

But QR code menus unlock a whole new way for you to draw customers in with tempting photos and hard-to-refuse promotions.

Add a mouthwatering photo to each menu item to show customers what they’re missing if they don’t click the Order button.

Include promotions at the very top of the menu, so they’re the first thing customers see when they scan the QR code. You can easily do that with GloriaFood.

Check out the video below to see how many different offers you can set up using our Promotions module:

Video Tutorial: How to Get a Tableside Ordering System for Free

For step-by-step instructions on how to set up tableside ordering using the QR code menu builder from GloriaFood, watch the video tutorial below:

Enable Tableside Ordering with the Best QR Code for Your Restaurant Menu

Follow these 5 simple steps to create a contactless ordering flyer for your restaurant for free:

1. Create an irresistible online menu for dine-in ordering

After creating a free restaurant account with GloriaFood and filling in basic information such as address and opening hours, it’s time to put together your menu by adding categories, items, add-ons, images, and enticing descriptions.

You can do that by going to Setup -> Menu setup -> Menu setup. Our visual drag-and-drop wizard makes the job very easy for you.

For a detailed presentation of how to set up your menu, watch this step-by-step tutorial:

2. Enable dine-in ordering in the GloriaFood system

After creating your menu, navigate to Setup -> Publishing -> Dine-In QR Code, and click ‘Yes’ to enable this service.

3. Choose the payment options you want to offer for tableside ordering

Next, navigate to Setup -> Payment, taxes & legal -> Payment methods, and enable the type of payment you offer for dine-in: cash or card.

If you want to enable online payment for tableside orders, go to Setup -> Payments -> Online Payment and you will be able to choose from a variety of payment providers available in your country.

 

Learn more about enabling online payment for your restaurant in the video below:

4. Create your tableside ordering QR code flyer

Now it’s time to generate your tableside ordering QR code. Go to Setup -> Publishing -> Dine-in QR Code, click ‘Yes,’ and ‘Next.’

This will open our QR code generator. Choose the color of the flyer and click ‘Next.’

Your flyer is now ready to be downloaded or sent to the printer directly via email.

5. Print the flyer and display it on every table

Once you’ve printed the flyer, you’re ready to offer tableside ordering. Here’s what your food clients have to do:

• Scan the QR code with their smartphone or tablet – this will automatically open the menu with the dine-in option pre-selected;
• Add the desired items to the cart;
• Add their contact information;
• Fill in the table number;
• Choose a payment method;
• And place the order.

Bonus: Use the Same Digital Menu to Accept Takeaway Orders

If you use GloriaFood’s tableside ordering system, you don’t need a new tool to accept orders online.

You can publish the same menu you created at the beginning of this tutorial on your website to accept orders online for pickup and delivery. For free! Here’s how:

And if you don’t have a restaurant website yet, we can help you generate one that’s optimized to maximize your online sales and make your restaurant more visible on Google.

Just go to Setup -> Publishing -> Sales optimized website and our restaurant website generator will guide you through the process. To see a demo of how your website could look, go to pronto-ny.com.

Wrapping up

Serve more happy customers every day and increase the average check value by enabling tableside ordering at your restaurant. It doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg – with GloriaFood, you can do it for free.