Our new restaurant is a self service buffe…
People here in brazil act different than in the resto of the world… who knows why!!!
people normally would choose a table, ask for beverages and then go and help themselfs food from the buffe…
well… here…
people goes directly to the buffe… then they pass by the scale, weight the food, and then finally choose a table.
I am having a hard time figuring out in wich table they will sit… so basically what I am doing now is choosing a table, adding all items and then when they sit changing table. The problem is that if I have to put in scale food from different tables all gets messed up.
Îf someone has an idea in how to implement this I willbe glad to hear and discuss it…
Make it use ticket create by default can have a default entity assigned so you can close ticket. Maybe customer # as entity or something similar. When you take the drink order you can assign table. Can pull up ticket with the customer # entity for drink orders.
The trick would be how do we have it auto assign a unique customer # as an entity for each customer. Maybe triggered by order added. But then we need to figure out how to assign a unique number each time.
The problem is that maybe 3 customers in a row will sit in the same table, then 2 customers for a new table, and then maybe a lone customer that was delayed in the buffe comes to the scale and will sit in same table with the first three customers… Then maybe a customer scales again (his second course) so he has already a table…
Can you use table badges? At first you’ll give customer a pre printed mag card (if he don’t already have) that have a table number on it. You won’t care where they sit. Customers will give orders and make payments with that number.
Great idea @emre it kinda builds upon what I was suggesting but negates the extra step of entering 2 entities.
@gerlandog you would need to create entities for this and these entities are the mag cards. Entities would simply be numbers of your choice, Tables for example. The mag cards are programmed with those numbers. So when you scan that it adds that number as the entity to their ticket. Now it doesnt matter where they sit… they give cashier that card to pay or add orders… etc. When that card is scanned it will pull up that Entities Ticket. It can be as simple as just a 2 digit number card that they place on their table when they sit down… or you can go with something else… lots of great ideas with this.
You give them a card when they come in. They get their food and when they weigh it you scan the card then add their food… close ticket. Does not matter what table they sit it… when waiter comes to get drink order the waiter scans their card that brings up the order to add drinks to it. Waiter closes ticket… Customer gets ready to pay you scan their card it brings up order they pay and then you keep card.
They dont even have to scan it technically you could just use a number system and give them a number to set on the table. You can enter the number without having to scan a card.
I don’t understand the “issue” here. An Entity can have multiple Tickets. I often do this with tables where I suspect bills sill be separate among the customers at the table.
The key is to create the Ticket, then pick the Table. Do the same for the next customer in the queue. When they are ready to pay, select the Table, and you will be presented with a list of Tickets. You can then select 1 Ticket, or choose to Merge any Tickets.
I also have “Table” Entities that have no relation to physical Tables… they have names like Tab01, Tab02, Tab03, etc., and I have another set with names like ToGo01, ToGo02, ToGo03, etc. This allows me to close a Ticket to serve the next Customer. Later, I can switch the Ticket to a physical Table, or leave it with the original Tab0x table. This works fairly well for me when I host a party, and my Customers are wondering around all night long. In this case, I can assign a Ticket Note or a FREE Tag containing the Customer Name, or some other describable characteristic that I can use to discern one Ticket/Tab0x from another… Ticket Tags will show up in a Ticket List, so it’s easy to pick out.
You do not need hardware to type a number. You do not have to scan anything that was just another suggestion. You can simply type the number using the number pad in Samba. However most places add scanners because of simplicity not complexity
Btw a simple cheap barcode scanner works with samba you don’t need any special hardware. But that’s all beside the point. My point was it can work without scanners or mag readers.
When I get home ill build it and show you. Its very simple. Only few rules. On my phone right now so its hard to really type all I want to demonstrate.
Naturally you could do this multiple ways but from what I understand based on what you have said so far it sounds like just simple number system would work best.
Customer comes in goes right to buffet gets food. You give them a random number can be table number, customer number, whatever you want it to be, It can use a barcode, magcard, or just simply be a number card you place on table. Lets say you hand him a numbercard with number T06. You type T06 into SambaPOS using the numberpad and it adds entity T06 to the ticket and then you add all his items to that ticket and close it. He takes the Number Card with him and places it on whatever table he wants to sit at. Now anytime you want to add drinks, or pay for his ticket you use that number that he placed on his table. You simply type T06 and it will bring up his order. When hes done you just put the number card back in queue to give to someone else.
OR you simply assign the number to ticket from SambaPOS and print a ticket for the customer to keep with them. When they are ready to pay they hand you ticket and you can pull it up with that number. or if they want drinks added when seated they hand waitress the ticket she can pull order up via that number and so on.
Basically you do not use assigned physical tables. Or if you really wanted to use assigned physical tables you can wait to assign the table for when they actually sit down… then when they order drinks your waitress pulls their order up with the Number you handed them and then assigns the actual table to the ticket. Hopefully I was clear. I will show how to actually set this up if you let me know if any of this makes sense.
I just showed 3-4 possible scenarios and roughly based it off what you described as your flow. If you have more details you think are relevant maybe share those and we can help with more precise method.
the problem is that the relation bewtween tables and customers is not 1 to 1… is 1 (table) to N (customers)… so I would have to assign a random number to each customer that does not come in any order… so maybe I add and order to table 1 then to table 5 then to table 3 then to table 5 then to table1…
so lets say that
we enter in this order Emre, Kendash, QMKAY, Gerlando and Alejandra…
Emre and Alejandra are together
Kendash and gerlando are together
QM is alone… waiting for a nice morena to come
so… i weight Emres plate and give him a random number (1876)
i weight Kendash plate and give hima number (2345)
i weight QM, Gerando and Ale plates and give them a number to each (999,345,1234)
so I have 5 people, 5 orders, 5 numbers, 5 tickets…
so they will come to cahs register to pay…
first comes gerlando with his number, but he is with kendash… who has also a number… here comes my problem…
i have 5 tickets, 5 orders 5 numbers but only three persons willing to pay…
Instead of placing them on tables we gather them next to till and hand one of them to the customer. They sit somewhere, place it on table and it becomes their table number. When they pay they’ll return it to the till and you’ll know their table number. After payment you’ll place label next to other labels and reuse it later for another customer. It can be a printed paper or mag cards. I even saw people using small (8x10 cm) chalk boards.
If I’ll sit with Alejandra I can wait or give her the number and sit somewhere.
We also have Merge Tickets action that accepts ticket ID’s as a comma separated list so you can use a ticket lister widget to choose tickets and merge to a single ticket.
If you have another idea in mind please give us more details because if you have waiters, a lot of tables or a crowded place we may think about different ways.
