POS Systems

What POS systems do you use? What do you like/dislike about it? Thanks

Aloha is the SH%^. AVOID DIGITAL DINING AT ALL COSTS. It is the bane of my existence.

Aloha is the SH%^. AVOID DIGITAL DINING AT ALL COSTS. It is the bane of my existence.

i've never had a problem with dd. but you're right... aloha is a really good system.

i can remember (and not THAT long ago) using an ancient micros system where you had to feed hard, cardstock checks into the machine. after feeding, some 'mechanism' would stamp the items/prices/taxes onto the checks. if you had a big party, multiple checks were neccessary.. so when you presented it to the guest it, literally, was like handing them a book.
nightmare = discovering that the inkribbon was running out while printing a large check.
if that wasnt enough, you had to write/print food on one side of the check and beverages on the other. to this day, i still believe the 'mechanism' inside the machine was comprised of two or three tiny, birdlike dinosaurs that dipped their beaks into a hidden inkwell.

fwiw.. the best system i've EVER used was no machine at all. just triple carbon-copy, handwritten checks, a seperate handwritten check for the bar (every server had their own 'pigeonhole' at the bar) , a flawless system of abbreviations and protocol for submitting the tickets for the kitchen/bar, and a policy of 'mistake = you don't get your order' that was strictly followed by everyone.
sounds like hell, but it was the most efficient, mistake-reducing system i've ever seen.

Yeah, the old handwritten ticket and cigar box register will always be the best.

I just got introduced to Aloha, and while I think the interface is ugly as sin, it runs smooth and is very idiot-friendly, only problem is the outrageously expensive customer support.

Micros was the death of me and I still shudder when I think about the years I spent using that mess.

I have worked with DD and also Squirrel, we had Aloha installed around 5 years ago and it seems to be the best.

Squirrel is a good system, not as costly as Aloha and supported here locally by Sunrise Technology. The owner is Frank Ruley who is also on the board of the Kentucky Restaurant Association. Frank can be reached at:
office (502) 245-1050 or email Frank@SunriseTS.com

Paging Jackie R., in three, two, one.....

Digital Dining is fine in some ways, but it is seriously inferior to Aloha. My main beefs with DD:

1- You can't hold orders for individual tables, this is a big one for me, I like to put everything in, and send each course as I'm ready, it's faster and more efficient. With Aloha, you can save an entire order and send as much or as little of it as you want. With DD, you can "suspend" one tables order, but it logs you out, and when you go back in you either have to send it or delete it to go to a different table.

2- The above issue also screws with the count of food. Say there's only 2 burgers left in the house, with aloha, you can order 1 of them and hold the order, and the computer acts as if you had sent the order, thus showing other servers that 1 of the 2 burgers is already spoken for, and there is indeed only 1 left. This does not happen in DD, the count merely dissappears until you send your order, and it's possible to order more than you actually have in house.

3- Separating checks is WAY more complicated in DD.

4- Payment is ridiculously over-complicated. I could go on for quite a while about this, but I'll spare you and just say this:
*there's a whole separate credit card screen that makes things way more complicated than it needs to be
*putting different (not even) amounts on credit cards is more complicated than it should be, and it is a freaking nightmare to split up a large party with gratuity added's check...espescially when they want to just split it X number of ways...we've spent forever trying to get the numbers right...it just doesn't make sense.

I did a great deal of research on this a few years back when I opened up three restaurants in North Carolina. I ended up going with a company called Volante. I found them in an article in Restaurant Technology Magazine showing the results of a restaurant survey. They had the highest overall user approval rating of any system.

What sets it apart is it is a Java based program that runs on Linux. To put it in a nutshell, it never crashes or needs to be reset and there is no threat of a virus since there are none written for Java. It is very user friendly both at the point of service and the back office. I called the restaurant before I posted this to check and was told the system still has never crashed or has needed to be reset since I turned it on over 4 years ago.

Here is the link... http://www.volantesystems.com/

Good luck with whatever you choose.

Aloha is no doubt the shizzzzzy, but it is also expensive

we use Restaurant Manager at the CPC and it works really well for us, not nearly as pretty as Aloha though

and we a have local service company here that is very attentive (install, set up, support, supplies, etc), i'd be glad to pass along info, just send me a PM

shawn

We use Aloha at Equus, Jack's, and Corbett's. The people at Kline are always willing to help and they respond immediately if we have a problem or want to make changes to our system. When choosing a POS system for Corbett's, I did a cost/benefit analysis of Aloha vs other systems, and in the end concluded that Aloha was the best system for our needs.

Both Impellizzeri's use Aloha and I researched systems for about 3 months.

Odly enough, in my former life, I was a computer programmer and wrote a POS system for Captains Quarters back in 1990, and several other restaurants & bars until 2003. So I have a little different perspective on POS systems, and more importantly, the service side.

As you may or may not know, my siblings and I own and operate Captains Quarters, Masterson's, Courtyard Cafe and The Olmsted. I have Digital Dining at Masterson's, Aloha @ Captains Quarters and CYC. I have to tell you that they are both fantasticly written applications, relatively stable (MS Windows being the biggest pitfall) and are extreemly flexible and fit any operation. I also have to tell you, as a restaurant operator, you will likely never find ANY service company for ANY component of your restaurant that responds as qucikly or reasonably priced as you want them to, but that's just our problem and not theirs!

Aloha (Kline) and DD (Sunrise) have been fantastic to work with and have always responded in a timely manner and more importantly, in a professional manner. Now no application is perfect, and no restaurant or POS service provider is either. But what I do know is that you can typically guage a good restaurant operator by their owner(s), and the same holds true for Kline and Sunrise. If you ever have the opportunity to sit down and meet their techs or service people, you will know why they both are successful in what they do.

If you have any more specific questions, please feel free to contact me at 228-1651.

Back in the early '80s (in the age before Windows!) I wrote some software for a restaurant. It was more after-POS and back office oriented, and I believe it was at the start of new tax requirements for tracking covers for server tips. I'm kind of curious about the cost of packaged software for POS these days. I assume that maintenance is over and above the cost of the package. Anybody care to share?