Sample app for a restaurant
Brasa & Lime Taqueria: waitlist and table ordering
A crowd at the door looks good and costs a restaurant the guests who will not stand in it. This app takes their name from the sidewalk, texts them when the table is ready and lets them order once they sit down.
Apps
Try a night out
This phone works. Join the waitlist, move the line along, read the text, then order at the table.
Add a name and tap Join the waitlist.
Put your name down
Wait anywhere. We will text you when your table is ready.
How many are eating?
Add your name to join
You will get one text, when your table is ready.
Sample app. Nothing you tap here is sent anywhere.
Apps
The four screens
From the door to the kitchen. Swipe to see them all.
1. Join the waitlist
Put your name down
Wait anywhere. We will text you when your table is ready.
How many are eating?
You will get one text, when your table is ready.
Sample screen 1 of 4: join the waitlist. Made up.
2. Your place in line
You are on the list, Dana
Your place in line
2
parties ahead of you
About 12 minutes · party of 2
You will get one text, when your table is ready.
Sample screen 2 of 4: place in line. Made up.
3. The text
Text message from Brasa & Lime
Your table for 2 is ready. Come to the host stand and say your name. We will hold it for 10 minutes.
Your table is ready, Dana
Come to the host stand within 10 minutes.
Sample screen 3 of 4: table ready text. Made up.
4. Order at the table
Sent to the kitchen
We will bring it to table 12. You can add more at any time.
- Received
- On the grill
- On its way
- 2 × Carne asada taco$9.50
- 2 × Chicken al pastor taco$8.50
- 1 × Chips and salsa$4.50
- 2 × Lime agua fresca$7.50
Pay at the table when you are ready.
Sample screen 4 of 4: order sent to the kitchen. Made up.
Apps
What it does for the business
- 01Join the waitlist from anywhere, no clipboard at the door
- 02A text when the table is ready
- 03The full menu to read while waiting
- 04Order at the table and the kitchen sees it at once
How we would build it
This is a sample for a made-up business. There is no client and no result to report: this is how we would plan and build it for a real one.
The problem
On a busy night a taqueria has a crowd at the door and a clipboard that nobody can read. Guests who are told forty minutes leave, guests who stay stand in the way of the staff, and the host spends the evening saying the same sentence.
What we built
For our sample restaurant, Brasa & Lime Taqueria, we would build a phone app where guests put their name down from the sidewalk, get a text when the table is ready, read the menu while they wait and order from their seat.
Problem and answer
The clipboard at the door is messy, and the host cannot leave the stand.
Guests add their own name and party size on their phone. The host sees one clean list and taps when a table is ready.
Guests who are told a long wait walk away.
They can wait anywhere they like. They see their place in line and get a text when it is their turn.
A table is ready and the guests are nowhere to be found.
The text says the table is ready and for how long it will be held, so the host knows when to move on.
Servers spend the first ten minutes at a table taking orders.
Once seated, guests read the menu and send their order to the kitchen. The server brings the food and looks after the table.
How it works
- 01A guest scans a code at the door, or opens the restaurant's page, adds a name and the number of people.
- 02The host sees the list in order and taps when a table is ready.
- 03The guest gets a text, comes to the host stand and sits down.
- 04At the table they read the menu and send the order. The kitchen sees it on one screen.
- 05The guest pays the way the restaurant already takes payment, at the table or at the till.
Works with
- A text message service, for the table ready text
- Square or Toast, so orders reach the till and the kitchen printer the restaurant already uses
- Stripe or Square, if the owner wants guests to pay from their phone
- Google Business Profile, so the page and hours on Google match the app
The plan we would follow
- Week 1We spend an evening at the restaurant, watch how the door and the kitchen work, and agree what the app has to do.
- Weeks 2 and 3We write the menu in plain words, take the photos, and build the waitlist, the menu and the ordering.
- Week 4The host and the servers try it on a quiet night, and we fix what gets in their way.
- Week 5We connect the texts, the till and the kitchen printer, and check it on older phones.
- Week 6Launch on a weeknight, with a short walk through for every shift.
What the owner keeps
- The app and the menu in it
- The text, till and payment accounts, all in the restaurant's own name
- Every guest name and order, held by the restaurant and never by us
Want something like this for your restaurant? Tell us about it in a 20 minute conversation.
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