The machinery under the pitch: what you set up, what happens on a Friday night without anybody doing anything, and how Monday's delivery ends up changing a price on your menu.
Most of AtTable runs on screens the kitchen and guests already have.In the kitchen
01 · Getting on it
You don’t need it all on to get something out of it.
Most venues start with the menu and the codes, because that pays for itself first. The parts that take real work are marked — better you know now than in week two.
Tonight15–30 minutes
Menu on, codes on the tablesUpload a PDF, a photo or a URL and the menu is read into dishes, prices and categories for you to correct. Print the codes, and guests can order.
This weekAn hour or two
The diary and the kitchenDeclare your sittings and how many covers each takes, put the booking link on your site, and open the kitchen screen on whatever tablet is already in the pass.
When you are readyDays, spread out
Suppliers and the shelfAdd your suppliers and their catalogues, then map dishes to ingredients. This is the slow one — a full menu is days, not minutes — but it is what makes food costs real rather than remembered.
NeverNot required
Replacing your tillYour EPOS stays where it is. AtTable is the guest-facing layer, the kitchen screen, the diary, the shelf and the numbers on top of them.
02 · One service
A Friday night, with the software doing the filing.
The question behind “how does it work” is usually “who has to learn it?” Here’s a service in order — and most of it lands on a phone the guest already owns.
Every open order, longest wait first.Live orders
16:40
OfficeTonight checked against the shelf. Ninety-six booked, stock for sixty on the beef.Two portions short becomes a line on tomorrow’s order.
18:00
Kitchen screenThe pass screen comes on. Stations filtered, nothing to log into.
19:41
Guest phoneTable seven scans the code. The menu opens with their nut filter already on.A third visit, recognised by device. No account, no name.
19:47
Guest phoneThey order and pay. Sea bass, sourdough, two glasses.Ticket to the kitchen, stock off the shelf, food cost of the plate — at once.
20:15
FloorA walk-in wants the risotto. It’s already eighty-sixed, so nobody promises it.Availability came off the ingredients, not a whiteboard.
20:52
NobodyTable nine opens the risotto, reads it, and orders the chicken instead.Opened, dwelled, walked away. The line your till will never have.
21:12
Guest phoneThey split the bill four ways, tip, and leave without waving at anyone.
23:10
OfficeService closes. Takings, covers and tips by who took them are on the dashboard as service ends.A summary of the day lands in your inbox at nine.
Grouped by supplier, on the day you order from each.Purchasing · To order
03 · One week
Monday's delivery is what Thursday's margin is made of.
Service empties the shelf as it sells. A delivery fills it — and the price on that delivery note, not the one on the order, is what your dishes are costed at from then on.
MonThe van arrives. Received quantities and prices are recorded.
Mon–ThuEvery dish is re-costed. No cost field anyone has to remember.
FriCovers in the diary are added to your usual week. The list writes itself.
None of it is worth anything until it changes something.
One dish, one fortnight — from a guest hesitating to a price that was changed, then checked. Tables, ingredients and invoices run the same shape.
Fri 19:43At the table
A guest opens the Truffle Risotto, reads it for forty seconds, and orders chicken.Nothing interrupts them. The open, the dwell and the walk-away are recorded.
Sun 08:10In your briefing
“156 opened it this month, 12 ordered it. They’re stopping at £24.”A figure, a plain-English read, and the likely cause — not a chart to interpret.
Sun 08:11One decision
You take it to £21. The menu guests scan changes straight away.No reprint and no new QR code. Or leave it at £24 — the decision is yours either way.
+14 daysChecked
Opens that became orders: 7.7% the fortnight before, 19% since.The dish’s own page sets the two periods side by side. It is a before-and-after, not a controlled test — a sunny fortnight moves it too — so read it with the diary open.
+£171in orders that didn't exist a fortnight ago · example
Same data, a different screen for each person.
The till — for the floor.
Tonight’s tables, live.
The office — margin per dish.
Five surfaces. One set of data.
Only one of them needs a proper screen, and it's the one you look at outside service.
Their own phoneYour guestsMenu, order, bill and review. No app, no account, nothing for you to support.
Browser or phoneYour floorTonight’s tables, the diary, orders for guests who’d rather not, and split bills.
A tablet in the passYour kitchenTickets by station, bumped item by item. Holds its own login mid-service.
The dashboardYouRevenue, what almost sold, the shelf, the rota and the supplier trail.
A link you sendYour suppliersAccept, reject or ask for a change to an order without an account. They never see your stock.
05 · What it needs from you
Five things. One of them is a habit.
None of it is hardware you buy from us. The one that catches people out: the numbers are only as good as what the kitchen tells them.
Working wifiIf it drops, the till keeps ringing rounds and printing tickets. Guest phones, the kitchen display and card payments need it back.
A screen in the passAny tablet or spare laptop. It doesn’t have to be new, or ours. What it runs on →
Someone who owns the menuPrices, descriptions and allergens have to be right — guests read them directly. Fifteen minutes a week.
Honesty about the shelfCosting is only as good as the recipes, and stock drifts unless somebody counts. A count shows you the gap in pounds; we can’t count for you.
A card setupYours or ours. Either way the money settles to your account, not a balance we hold.
See it against your own menu.
Fifteen minutes on a call, with your menu and your numbers rather than ours.
