How to Choose the Best EPOS System for a Restaurant in the UK

In this article

1. Start with your restaurant’s service model
2. Test a real order from beginning to end
3. Make changes after the order has started
4. Follow the order into the kitchen or fulfilment workflow
5. Test the bill and payment journey
6. Recreate your busiest service, not your quietest one
7. Ask suppliers to demonstrate exception handling
8. Use this restaurant EPOS demo worksheet
9. Compare the commercial proposal only after testing fit
10. So what is the best restaurant EPOS system?

This is a supplier-written buyer guide from EPOS Bookings, not an independent ranking of EPOS providers. It is designed to help you evaluate shortlisted systems on operational fit. For the current EPOS Bookings restaurant proposition, see our restaurant EPOS systems page.

Start with your restaurant’s service model

Before booking demonstrations, write down how customers actually move through your operation.

A table-service restaurant might take an order after seating customers, send different items for preparation, make changes during the meal and settle one or more payments at the end.

A counter-service operation can have a much shorter journey: customer orders, pays and waits for collection or fulfilment. Fast and clear order entry may matter more than functions designed around managing tables.

A mixed operation can contain both. A café might take most orders at the counter but also offer table service in part of the venue. Another restaurant could have different ordering journeys at lunch and dinner.

Do not assume that a function commonly associated with restaurants is automatically essential to yours.

Instead, document:

• where orders are taken;

• where they are entered;

• where each part of an order needs to go;

• when customers usually pay;

• what staff commonly change after an order has been entered; and

• where delays or mistakes currently occur.

That becomes your demonstration brief.

For broader questions about choosing EPOS across different industries, use our EPOS software buying guide. The rest of this guide concentrates specifically on restaurant operations.

Test a real order from beginning to end

Supplier demonstrations can become feature tours: a salesperson opens menus, reports and settings while everything works perfectly.

A better test is to give every shortlisted supplier the same sample order.

Create something realistic enough to expose your workflow. For example, a table-service restaurant might ask the demonstrator to enter an order for four customers containing different items and at least one genuine type of change your staff regularly encounter.

Then watch what happens.

Where is the order entered? What does the member of staff need to select? How is the order associated with the correct customer, table or transaction where your service model requires that? What does the next member of staff see?

Do not just record whether the supplier says the system “supports orders”. Record the actual sequence required to process one.

For counter service, use a scenario appropriate to the counter rather than forcing a table-service test onto the system. Ask the supplier to demonstrate several consecutive orders at the pace you would expect during a busy period.

The purpose is to discover how well the proposed setup matches your restaurant, not an imaginary standard restaurant.

Make changes after the order has started

Perfect orders are easy to demonstrate. Real service includes changes.

Build at least two common changes into your script.

Perhaps a customer changes an item before the order is finalised. Perhaps something changes after information has already been sent towards preparation. Your own scenarios might involve additions, removals, substitutions or another normal operational change.

Ask the supplier to demonstrate what staff do at each stage.

Record:

What does front-of-house staff change?

What information does the fulfilment team receive?

How is the revised order distinguished from the original?

Does anyone have to communicate the change separately?

The specific answers will depend on the system and configuration. That is precisely why the test is useful.

Avoid accepting “yes, it can handle changes” as the complete answer. You want to see how.

Follow the order into the kitchen or fulfilment workflow

Restaurants also differ in what happens after an order is taken.

Your job during the demo is to trace the information to every place it needs to reach in your actual operation.

If different parts of your restaurant prepare or fulfil different items, ask the supplier to demonstrate how your sample order would move through that setup. If your operation has a simpler workflow, test that instead.

Useful questions include:

• What information does the preparation team receive?

• Where does it appear?

• What happens when the original order changes?

• How can staff identify which customer, order or table the information belongs to?

• What happens if an item becomes unavailable during service?

• What does front of house see after information has been sent?

Do not use this section as a checklist demanding kitchen displays, printers or any other particular technology. Different restaurants may choose different processes.

The buying question is whether the proposed system can support the fulfilment workflow you have decided you need.

Test the bill and payment journey

Next, take the same sample transaction through to payment.

For a straightforward counter-service restaurant, this might be a simple order-and-pay process. For table service, your normal customer journey may involve more stages or different ways of settling a bill.

Ask the supplier to demonstrate the situations that genuinely happen in your venue rather than requesting every payment feature they can think of.

Pay particular attention to manual re-entry. If staff need to copy an amount from one system or device into another, record that as a step in your worksheet.

Also ask what happens when the normal payment journey does not go to plan. How can staff establish the status of a payment? What procedure are they expected to follow after an interrupted or unsuccessful attempt?

The EPOS system and card terminal are separate parts of the buying decision, even when a particular configuration allows them to work together. Our payment terminals page covers the current EPOS Bookings hardware offer; any particular payment integration should be confirmed for the proposed configuration rather than assumed from this guide.

Recreate your busiest service, not your quietest one

A demonstration involving one staff member and one uncomplicated transaction tells you relatively little about a busy Friday or Saturday service.

Describe your peak period to the supplier.

How many members of staff are typically taking or entering orders? Where are customers waiting? Which part of the workflow becomes congested? What kinds of changes happen most often?

Then ask how the proposed setup would handle a realistic sequence of activity.

You do not need to recreate an entire evening. A short stress scenario can be revealing: several orders entered in succession, one change to an existing order, another order progressing towards fulfilment and a customer ready to pay.

Watch for unnecessary navigation, repeated data entry and points at which one member of staff has to wait for another.

Ease of use is difficult to judge from a feature list. A live operational scenario gives you something concrete to compare.

Ask suppliers to demonstrate exception handling

A buyer demo should contain at least one deliberate problem.

Ask what happens if a device becomes unavailable, connectivity is interrupted or a transaction is left in an uncertain state. Choose scenarios that would genuinely matter in your restaurant.

Do not assume that a system has a particular offline capability or automatic fallback. Those behaviours can depend on the software, hardware, payment setup and configuration.

Instead, ask:

What will staff see?

What should they do next?

Which functions remain available?

How do we establish what has and has not been completed?

Who would we contact under the proposed arrangement?

The objective is not to demand that nothing ever fails. It is to understand the operational procedure when it does.

Use this restaurant EPOS demo worksheet

Give every shortlisted supplier the same script and record the demonstration rather than relying on memory afterwards.

Demo scenario	What to ask the supplier to show	What to record
Create an order	Enter your realistic sample order from the appropriate service point	Steps required; clarity; manual entry
Change the order	Make a realistic change before and/or after it progresses	Where the change appears; extra steps
Fulfilment	Show where the relevant order information goes	What each team sees; how orders are identified
Bill	Produce the bill or transaction outcome your service model requires	Steps; flexibility relevant to your venue
Payment	Take the transaction through the proposed payment journey	Devices used; re-entry; confirmation
Busy service	Run several realistic activities close together	Delays; navigation; staff conflicts
Exception	Demonstrate an agreed failure/interruption scenario	Staff message; procedure; recovery
Manager check	Show the information your manager actually needs after service	Availability; clarity; extra processing

Add two final columns: Must-have / useful / not required and Verified in demo: yes / no / needs clarification.

That prevents an impressive but irrelevant feature from receiving the same weight as something your staff use dozens of times per service.

Compare the commercial proposal only after testing fit

Once a system passes the operational test, examine the commercial proposal.

Compare what hardware and software are included, what payment arrangement applies, what setup or other services are included, and what contractual terms apply to the actual quote.

Do not assume pricing from a generic buyer guide. For current EPOS Bookings commercial information, use our pricing page.

Likewise, ask each supplier to state what support, training and implementation arrangements are included rather than assuming they are standard across providers.

Our EPOS quote comparison checklist can help once you have reached this stage.

So what is the best restaurant EPOS system?

There is no responsible universal winner.

For a table-service restaurant, operational fit might depend heavily on how orders move between front of house and fulfilment, how changes are communicated and how bills are settled. A counter-service venue may put much greater weight on straightforward, rapid transaction entry. A mixed operation needs to test both of its real customer journeys.

Define those journeys first. Then make every shortlisted supplier demonstrate the same order, changes, fulfilment process, bill, payment, busy-service scenario and exception.

The result is more useful than a top-ten list: a shortlist based on evidence from your restaurant’s actual way of working.

When you want to evaluate EPOS Bookings specifically rather than the general buying process, continue to our restaurant EPOS systems page.

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