Prepare for mobile food & beverage (F&B) ordering

Considering having mobile food & beverage ordering at your venue? A bit of preparation work can help smooth the set up process.

This guide will walk through what you need to prepare before creating your first food & beverage checkout for mobile food & beverage ordering.

What do I need to prepare?

Complete the following seven steps first to help you customize your checkout to suit your venue, increase revenue and streamline your restaurant operations.

1. Set up your venue to use ROLLER’s cloud printing feature or connect to Fresh KDS.
2. Add descriptions and images to all stock products you want to sell for mobile food & beverage ordering.
3. Configure your stock modifier options.
4. Plan and structure your online menu.
5. Assign product tags for grouping menu items.
6. [Optional] Configure your operating hours.
7. [Optional] Create your stock periods to set menu availability.

Read on for more information. If you're ready to get started building your checkout for mobile food & beverage ordering, refer to the guide Create your food & beverage checkout for mobile food & beverage ordering.

Step one: Set up cloud printing or KDS for your venue

The first step in preparing for mobile food & beverage ordering is to ensure that your venue is using ROLLER’s cloud printing feature for docket printing. This means that at a minimum, all docket printers at your venue must be connected to POS using cloud printing.

Mobile food & beverage ordering uses the cloud printing feature to determine the correct printers for guest food and beverage orders (production dockets). This saves time on printer management and ensures guests get their orders on time. Additionally, you can set up a backup printer to prevent order delays. To learn more, read the guide Get started with cloud printing for production management.

If you’d like to use an integrated Kitchen Display System (KDS) at your venue and send food & beverage orders to a screen in your kitchen, read the guide Integrate with Fresh KDS and configure your devices to get started.

Step two: Add descriptions and images to stock products

Adding descriptions and images to your food and beverage items is a great way to entice your guests as they scroll through your menu and increase food and beverage sales in your checkout.

Keep your descriptions short and clear so your guests know at first glance what they’re ordering,  reducing the need for guests to seek clarification from your staff.

To add descriptions and images to your existing stock products, in preparation for mobile food & beverage ordering, follow the steps below.

1. From Venue Manager, go to Products > Stock > All stock.
2. Select the stock product you want to update with a description and image.
3. Under Full description, type the description for your stock product and include any variations guests might need to know about.
4. Under Add an image, include an image representative of your stock product.
5. Select Save.

This description and image will display in the online menu your guests will see.

To create a new stock product, read the guide Create your stock products.

Step three: Configure your stock modifier options

Before creating your food and beverage checkout for mobile food & beverage ordering, it's important to define how guests can modify and customize your menu items, such as choosing what milk to have in their coffee or extra toppings on their burger. Configuring your stock modifier options is the way to do this.

To update the options on existing modifiers, follow the steps below.

1. From Venue Manager, go to Products > Stock > Modifiers.
2. Select the modifier you want to update.
3. Under Options, you can configure the following:
   
   

   Required	Select Required, if at least one variation of this modifier is required when a guest purchases a product this modifier is linked to. For example, if a guest orders fries they're required to choose a serving size: small, medium or large.
   Single choice	Select Single choice, if only one modifier from this group can be selected at a time. For example, if a guest orders a coffee they can only choose one type of milk: full cream, oat or soy.
   Open quantity	Select Open quantity, if guests can add more than one quantity of this modifier to their product. For example, guests can select 1 or more cheese slices to add to their burger.

To create a new modifier, check out the guide Create and edit modifiers.

Watch this video to walk through steps 1-3 and prepare for the perfect online menu!

Step four: Plan and structure your online menu

A well-structured menu is not only about listing items, but also about presenting a carefully planned food and beverage selection that's easy to navigate for guests and streamlines the ordering process.

Before completing steps five to seven, think about the following:

• What food and beverage items you want to add to your menu. For example, your venue might sell hamburgers, salads and cold drinks.
• How these food and beverage items will be grouped and displayed in your menu. For example, you could have sections for hot food, snacks and drinks.
• When your food and beverage items will be available. For example, can your guests place orders as soon as your venue opens, or do you only want your menu (or sections of your menu) to be available at certain times throughout the day. Read on to learn more.

Once you have your plan in place, you're ready to move on.

Step five: Assign product tags to menu items

If you've planned out the structure of your menu (see step four above) you'll know each menu section you want to create and which menu items will go in that section.

For example, you plan to divide your menu into four sections: Hot food, Snacks, Cold drinks and Hot drinks. Your hot food items include:

• Hot dogs
• Pizza
• Hamburgers
• Hot chips

Using product tags, you can assign each of these food items the same tag (Hot food) and then add them to the Hot food menu section together, without having to select each item one by one.

You may also have menu items with more than one tag. For example, hot chips can be part of your hot food menu and snacks menu. In this case, you can add more than one tag (Hot food and Snacks) to that item and then guests can choose hot chips from either menu section.

To add tags to your existing stock products, in preparation for mobile food & beverage ordering, follow the steps below.

• From Venue Manager, go to Products > Stock > All stock.
• Select the stock product you want to update with a tag.
• Under Tags, either select an existing tag and then select Apply. Or, type in a new tag and select Create, to create a new tag and then Apply.
• Select Save.

To create a new stock product, check out the guide Create your stock products.

[Optional] Step six: Configure your operating hours

To prevent guests from ordering from your menu while your venue is closed or unavailable for orders, configure your operating hours and set up and manage your venue's trading hours with ease, including the days you’re closed and any temporary hours for special events or short-term changes to these hours. Mobile food & beverage ordering will only be available during the operating hours you set for your venue.

By default, all menu items in your food & beverage checkout will be available to guests based on your operating hours. But, if there are sections of your menu that are only available at specific times of the day, you can override your operating hours with stock periods (see step seven below).

To configure your venue’s operating hours, read the guide Set up and manage operating hours.

[Optional] Step seven: Create your stock periods to set menu availability

Your venue’s operating hours will determine when mobile food & beverage ordering is available to guests. However, if your food and beverage operations don't fully align to your operating hours, you can use stock periods to override your checkout availability.

For example, your operating hours are configured from 10 am to 8 pm, but your kitchen may only take hot food orders between 12 pm and 3 pm. In this scenario, stock periods can be used to set this availability.

If we continue with the example, with ROLLER you're able to create a stock period for hot food with the hours set from 12 pm to 3 pm. This stock period can then be assigned to all sections of your online menu that have hot food, which is only available to order during this time.

To create stock periods, follow the steps below.

1. From Venue Manager, go to Products > Stock > Stock periods.
2. Select Create period.
3. Add a title for the stock period (eg Hot food).
4. The description will be auto filled by the hours you set below. You can change this description if you like.
5. Add the hours of availability for each day of the week (eg 12 am to 3 pm). These hours override your venue's operating hours.
6. Select the icon if the stock products are not available for that day of the week.
7. Save the stock period.

Watch this video to walk through steps 4-7 and plan your well-structured menu.

How do I get started?

When you're ready to start with mobile food & beverage ordering, refer to the guide Create your food and beverage checkout for mobile food & beverage ordering.