Fine Dining Restaurant Framework Development and Survey

Jesse Tran, Ana Hol, Quang Vinh Nguyen and Simeon Simoff

School of Computing, Engineering and Mathematics, Western Sydney University, Australia

Keywords: Restaurant Management Systems, Point of Sales, Usability Studies.

Abstract: The goal of restaurant owners is to maximise their incomes through satisfying the whole needs and

experiences of their diners. This is usually done through a modern point of sales (POS) system. However,

with the large number of POS on the market with abundant array of features, very few research has been

done on the usability and effectiveness of these systems and their features. Our research investigates POS

systems reviews each of their features and then aims to find similarities that have the most impact, and are

essential to the day to day processes of existing fine dining restaurants using these POS systems. This paper

aims to determine which features of POS systems are most crucial for the decision making in specific

restaurant situations.

1 INTRODUCTION

Being able to make effective business decisions can

either lead to the failure or success of a restaurant.

The typical customer journey of a restaurant

involves: customer enters the restaurant, gets seated

by a waiter, looks though menu, asks waiter for

advice, orders, eats, may order and eat again, pays

the bill, and exits, and may visit again if they had a

good experience (Designthinkersgroup.com, 2017).

A typical customer journey has been mapped in

Figure 1 that shows the point from the customer

entering the restaurant, all the way to when they pay

for their meal.

Figure 1: A map of a typical customer journey in a

restaurant.

There are already several existing researches

covering this topic. One of them includes

investigating an interactive restaurant

communication system for providing food ordering

and entertainment. It does not take into account the

effectiveness of it (Kurland and Gilbert, 1985).

Another research looked into the area of developing

an information system aimed at online restaurant

services and information management, so that

customers can find restaurants, reserve parking

spaces and even order before having physically

entered the restaurant so that waiters can prepare for

their arrivals beforehand (Lo et al., 2011). Another

research has also been conducted into measuring the

perception of a manager in terms of using a

restaurant management information system – which

is a software used to help manage the restaurant – to

determine what factors are most important in the

manager’s point of view (Huber, 2003).

The existing research focuses only on a small

portion of the restaurant business, such as the

manager’s perspective, or how to improve customer

satisfaction. None of the existing research relates to

a complete restaurant-wide system using a solo POS

system.

Our research investigates a random selection of

POS systems found on the review website,

“Software Advice,” (Software Advice, 2017) and

analyses each of their system features, their

Facebook pages and then aims to find trends and

similarities that have the most impact and are

essential to the day to day processes of existing fine

dining restaurants using these POS systems. For

example, restaurant’s inventory report generations

Tran, J., Hol, A., Nguyen, Q. and Simoff, S.

Fine Dining Restaurant Framework Development and Survey.

DOI: 10.5220/0006417800830090

In Proceedings of the 14th International Joint Conference on e-Business and Telecommunications (ICETE 2017) - Volume 2: ICE-B, pages 83-90

ISBN: 978-989-758-257-8

must be in sync with making orders, so that real-

time data can be obtained.

This paper, based on literature reviews, will

answer the question, “Which features of a POS

system are most important for the fine dining

restaurants?”

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

Literature reviews have been conducted on the

hospitality sector to determine the impacting factors

for a restaurant success.

The most essential of these factors are: proper

use of equipment, supervision of producing food,

schedule, food control, records, use of standardised

recipes, use of appropriate purchasing techniques,

coordination of payments, and evaluation of

customer satisfaction (Mariampolski et al., 1980).

Research also indicates that children’s influences

have an impact on a family’s dining out experience.

This means restaurants must also satisfy young

families. The result showed that children aged

between 9 to 12 are the most influential (Labrecque

and Ricard, 2001).

Stated in The Academy of Management

Executive 1994, there are 10 qualities that can be

used to improve service quality: Listening to what

customers want, reliability to perform the promised

service, good mapping of the customer journey,

recovery from problems such as by encouraging

customer’ feedback, surprising customers with

something better or extra they did not expect, fair

play, teamwork, getting feedbacks from employees,

and being a servant to the company such as visiting

it and deciding what needs improvements (Berry et

al., 1994).

In a study that showed elements of why

restaurants fail, the researchers found it was due to:

lack of documented strategy, unwilling to create

standards (such as where to sit), focusing on one

aspect at the expense of others, poor communication

with customers, the price paid not matching the

value of the service offered, and cannot maintain the

service (Parsa et al., T, 2005). It should be noted that

smoke-free restaurants had no impact to the profit

the restaurant made (Glantz and Smith, 1994).

In a study done in Australia, environmental

factors can also be taken into account. They include

new trends, competition and economic climate, with

the first being the most important (Collie and

Sparks, 2000).

These hospitality factors are just one part of a

restaurant success. A number of elements are also

required for the success of a restaurant, and a list has

been selected from a range of sources. In the next

section, seven POS systems have been reviewed

with their advantages and disadvantages researched

that in the third section of this paper will determine

if they contain the aspects needed for the

restaurant’s success.

3 POS SYSTEMS

Seven POS systems have been reviewed and

provided an overview. These POS systems were

selected from the consumer review website

“Software Advice” (Software Advice, 2017) where

their reviews were collected, as well from their

corresponding Facebook page. Their positive and

negative aspects have been explained. It is not

inferred that all essential features have been

identified, however the ones chosen have been

shown in reviews to carry the most impact.

3.1 Kounta

Kounta is a POS that can be used on desktops,

Android and iOS. The important features identified

in literature includes the features of inventory

management to track the availability of ingredients

as foods are ordered. Guests are assigned tables from

a virtual table layout with decorations. Reports that

can be generated include sales time, average

spending, staff selling history, inventory, customer

details. The data required for these reports are the

customer membership details, time of sale, item sold

and ingredients used – all in real time even while the

chef is creating the dishes. Other features include

customer relationships achieved with loyalty points,

and can also be managed with integration to services

such as MailChimp.

In the customer journey, the customer enters the

restaurant and then the POS creates/retrieves the

customer’s profile. The customer is assigned a seat

and waiter from the table layout in the POS. The

customer orders, the POS records the time of order,

and the waiter notes any modification to the order.

The chef is alerted, wastage and usage of ingredients

are updated in the inventory system. Once the food

is prepared, the waiter is alerted, who then serves it

to the customer. At checkout, bills can be split by

the POS and then updates the table layout to show

the new vacancy. The guest tracking is updated with

how much the customer had spent during their time

in the restaurant. (Kounta, 2016).

The positive aspects were:

ICE-B 2017 - 14th International Conference on e-Business

 Being able to filter reports to get clearer insights

 Automatic send orders to kitchen

 Links well with popular accounting software so

that further business decisions can be made using

third-party software

 An inventory system that allows categorising

food and able to keep track of ingredients used.

The negative aspects were:

 An addon software is needed to use EFTPOS and

other alternative payment methods, and therefore

makes it less flexible.

 The way to group food to show on the ordering

screen was not effective because they cannot be

in subcategories.

 Order prices are decided by quantity, not how

much they weigh.

 Cannot print out more than one tax invoice.

3.2 Ambur

Ambur runs on iOS. Employees are able to log in for

clocking payrolls. A table layout with colour codes

is shown once signed in. The system is able to assign

waiters to serve only certain tables. Red tables are

another waiter’s tables, green are mine, and grey are

vacant. Once submitted, a printer at the kitchen

instantly prints the order. A unique feature is that

customers can be tracked and monitored until they

pay for their orders. The reports that can be

generated are only overviews and sales reports, but

are in real time. (Amburappcom 2016).

In the typical customer journey, the customer

enters the restaurant, and the POS assigns a table

and waiter from the table layout. The customer then

makes the order and gets shown the timed specials at

the same time by the waiter. The waiter takes the

order, notes down any allergies, and then manually

sends the order to the kitchen. Once the order is

ready, the chief manually alerts the waiter. At

checkout, the customer’s profile is opened on the

POS, and have their spending recorded. The table

layout is updated to show vacancy.

The positive aspects were:

 Menu can be customised so that customers can

order different styles and portions.

 Orders made by the waitress are automatically

sent to the kitchen

 Mobile devices can easily be integrated so that

waiters can take orders anywhere inside the

restaurant.

The negative aspects were:

 The depth of the reports when filtered by dates is

not enough

 Reports are too simple, and not enough for a

manager to make effective decisions

 Orders made cannot be deleted

3.3 Toast

Toast is a tablet POS. It contains a lot of restaurant

successful features such as it allows a fair tipping

percentage to each customer, easy bill splitting, and

transferring a bill to another waitress. Table layout

for assigning diners can be set, however decoration

is not included. A loyalty program is introduced in

the system using membership cards, which allows

the manager to track each customer. The reports that

can be generated include inventory management,

sales, guest preferences and their membership

details, and labour cost. (Toast, inc. 2016).

The customer journey takes as the customer

enters the restaurant, the waiter gets alerted, and the

customer makes the order. The waiter notes down

any modifications, and then the kitchen system gets

alerted manually. Once the meal is ready, the waiter

is alerted to serve to the customer. The only time

when the POS is used is wat checkout where digital

receipts are stored in the database.

The positive aspects were:

 The reports can easily be exported to accounting

software

 The reporting contains insightful graphs,

especially the sales graph that can be filtered

based on dates, time and staff, and the way an

overview can be shown

 Customers can easily split their bills

 The manager is able to view all the sales and

transactions from the past, which are beneficial

for making future decisions.

 Ordering food is easy, and can be modified with

the changes reflected in the price.

The negative aspects were:

 When exporting reports to Excel, it cannot be

customised to decide which rows should be

shown.

 No way to make reservations

 It cannot monitor restaurant from a remote

location

 Cannot recognise phone numbers of customers in

customer database

 No inventory management

Fine Dining Restaurant Framework Development and Survey

3.4 SalesVu

SalesVu is a POS made for the hospitality industry

in general. Features that have importance to the

restaurant success includes the ability to allow the

user to monitor their inventory, create detailed

reports filtered by day or employee or location or

device or product, and manage customer and

employees in separate databases. The reports that

can be generated are all under sales, however can be

categories into hourly, tables, orders that were

deleted, labour, discounts and average orders.

(Salesvucom 2016).

The customer journey starts as the customer

enters the restaurant. The POS assigns the table and

waiter, and then loads the happy hour discounts so

that the waiter can make orders for them.

Modifications are recorded, and then sent to the

kitchen, where the wastage is recorded. When the

food is ready, the waiter is alerted through the POS

and served to the customer. At checkout, the POS

splits the bill, updates the table layout to show

vacancy, and finally records the average spending.

The positive aspects were:

 Insightful graphs, especially the sales graph that

can be filtered based on dates, time and staff, and

the way an overview can be shown

 Inventory management

The negative aspects were:

 It cannot add user into the customer database at

the same time of ordering

3.5 ShopKeep

ShopKeep is made only for iPads and runs on iOS. It

can be used for training staff, taking cash and card

payments. A successful feature that they have that

our literature has identified to be important is that

their inventory and reports can be managed online.

The reports available include sales, transaction,

departments, shift and inventory. The inventory

management is able to track cost and profit margins,

and view top sellers. Once one register makes an

order, all the other registers in the restaurants will be

updated so that they can also see the same order

(Shopkeepcom, 2016).

The customer journey starts when the customer

enters the restaurant. The POS assigns the table, and

then alerts the waiter. The customer makes the order,

the waiter notes any modification, and then an order

is sent to the kitchen. The inventory system records

ingredients that have been used to cook the food.

When the food is ready, the waiter is alerted and

served to the customer. At checkout, the POS splits

the bill, and sends receipts to the customer’s email

address. This receipt is also saved into the POS’s

database.

The positive aspects were:

 The organisation of the system is easy to

understand so that even staff with disabilities are

able to use it.

 Works with third-party credit card processing

systems

 Express pay lets customer pay quickly without

having to click on all the buttons as though they

were fine dining. This makes it easier for staff to

take order and consequently deliver the order

The negative aspects were:

 No chip reader

 Difficult to integrate with Quickbooks

Accounting Software

3.6 TouchBistro

TouchBistro is a cloud POS that can function

without the internet. The important features include

tables are given in a layout that can be tapped to start

an order. Users are able to customise the menu, edit

and delete menus, and have them assigned to

customers at the table, not as a whole. The reports

can be viewed are sales, accounting, payment, menu

and labour. (Touchbistrocom, 2016).

The customer journey involves the customer

entering the restaurant, gets assigned their table and

waiter by the POS. The waiter showcases and

explain the menu on their POS. The customer makes

the order. The POS records every transaction at the

time they are ordered. The waiter then notes the

modifications, and then sends the order to the

kitchen via the POS. The inventory is updated based

on what ingredient was used. The ready food is

alerted to the waiter and served to the customer. At

checkout, the POS splits the bill and updates the

table layout to show vacancy.

The positive aspects were:

 Daily specials can be easily added into the

system so that they reflect at certain times and

days.

 Splitting bill

 The ordering function is simple to navigate

The negative aspects were:

 Credit cards can be assigned to a customer for

fast payments, but not to tables.

 The reports show only overviews, and cannot be

filtered

ICE-B 2017 - 14th International Conference on e-Business

 Does not keep track of how much money is in till

3.7 POS Nation

POS is a customisable POS system fitted using their

own hardware. It has the essential features of

customers assigned to tables either by their names or

their physical appearances. The system also offers

different interfaces for different departments: the

waiter, bartender, and certain cooks such as pizza.

The reports include staff, sales, inventory

management with waste records, and also statistics

on what is driving sales. (POS Nation, 2016).

In the customer journey, the customer enters the

restaurant, and the POS assigns a table and waiter

for the customer. The customer makes their order,

the POS records every single transaction at the time

they are ordered, and the waiter notes the

modifications. Orders are sent to the kitchen, and

once ready, the waiter is alerted and served to the

customer, all via the POS. At checkout, the POS

splits the bill, and updates the table layout to show

vacancy.

The positive aspects were:

 Is able to keep track of sales from other stores,

and update the inventory

 Card reader is integrated for fast payments

 Inventory system has a simple interface

The negative aspects were:

 Unable to connect with other payment software.

 Unable to charge based on weight

4 RESULT

From our literature review, a list of requirements

essential to a restaurant’s success has been

identified. This was accomplished by summarising

each of the reviewed sources and picking out the

features, and then assigning them to a unique

category, so that if two features were worded

differently but meant the same thing, they would be

classified as the same feature. Each feature is given

a letter which was used in our evaluation to identify

which of these features are satisfied in several POS

features. It is also implied that these features alone

do not guarantee success as there are other aspects to

be taken into account too, such as personality, skills

and knowledge. The list of requirements are shown

in Table 1.

Table 1: Requirements essential to a restaurant’s success

identified through hospitality literature review.

A) Proper use of equipment (Mariampolski et al., 1980)

B) Supervision of p

oducing food (Mariampolski et al., 1980)

C) Scheduling (Mariampolski et al., 1980)

D) Food control (Mariampolski et al., 1980)

E) Maintain records (Mariampolski et al.1980)

F) Standardized recipes (Mariampolski et al., 1980)

Use of appropriate purchasing techniques (Mariampolski

et al., 1980)

G) Coordinating of payments (Mariampolski et al., 1980)

H) Evaluate cus

omer satisfaction (Mariampolski et al., 1980)

I) Child's influence (Labrecque and Ricard, 2001)

J) Listen to what customer wants (Berry et al., 1994)

K) Reliability (Berry et al., 1994)

L) Fulfil the basic (Berry et al., 1994)

Have standard of where to sit and staff roles (Parsa et al.,

2005)

From our maps of customer journeys derived

from our reviews on POS systems, all the distinct

features are identified in Table 2.

Table 2: Distinct POS features.

Alert cook

Automatically send orders to

the kitchen

Alert waiter

Assign waiter to serve only a

specific table

Assign table Assign customers to tables

Customer profile

management

Integrate a membership

profile for loyalty rewards,

etc.

Customise virtual table

layout

The feature to create a digital

layout of the restaurant, and

assign customers to them.

Different interface for

different departments

Each department would have

their own interface. For

example, a separate interface

is used for ordering pizzas,

which is different from

ordering burgers.

Inventory management

Track the ingredients used to

cook the foo

Menu showcase

Allow customers to read and

learn about the food on a

restaurant’s mobile device.

Modify order

Edit food order, such as

adding extra or a certain

ingredient.

Orde

Order the food

Split bill

Dividing the bill among the

diners within a table.

Timed specials

Allow the ordering of certain

food at certain times with

certain prices.

Track average spending

Track the spending of every

dine

Track customer by name/ID

Track a user’s order by their

name.

Track individual order

transactions

Track the orders at the time

they order, instead of at the

end when the bill is generated.

Wastage record

Record food that has gone to

waste or is soon to expire.

Fine Dining Restaurant Framework Development and Survey

4.1 Features Evaluation

With our list of restaurant success features identified

from Table 1, all the features identified from all the

POS systems reviewed are matched together. These

are ordered from most to least important based on

what was identified in the user-reviews of POS.

Table 3: Evaluation of POS features from Table 2 linking

to the successful restaurant features from Table 1 they

satisfy.

Track average spending C) D) E

Track individual order

transactions

E) H) I) J) K)

Track customer by name/ID C) D) E) H) I) J)

Inventory management B) C) D) E) G) L)

Wastage record B) C) D)

Orde

C) E) K) L)

Split bill G)

Alert waite

A) C) H) K) L) M)

Alert coo

A) C)

Customer profile management E) H) J)

Customise virtual table layout C) M)

Modify orde

G) G) J)

Assign table C) D) G) E) M)

Timed specials C) D)

Menu showcase L) H) J)

Different interface for different

departments

A) B) C) D) E) F) K) M)

5 DISCUSSION

Based on what was learnt from this research, we

designed a new customer journey map in Figure 2

that takes into account essential POS features.

Figure 2 shows that as soon as a customer enters

the restaurant, their customer profile is automatically

retrieved and used to track all the orders they make

during their time in the premise. If a credit card is

assigned to their account, it can be assigned to their

table for faster payment at the end. If they do not

have one, their physical appearances will be noted as

their temporary identify. The customer is assigned a

seat from a customisable table layout from the POS

system by an alerted waiter.

We recommend a digital menu, such as a tablet,

to be given to the diner so that the daily and timed

specials can be automatically be shown. This will

fulfil the requirement of being reliable.

Once the customer is interested in a dish, they

can view more information by clicking on it on their

iPad. This will also fulfil the role of getting advice.

The waiter may also suggest dishes that are popular

at the certain time of the day, based on historical

reports generated by the POS system.

Figure 2: A proposed map. Before the restaurant opens, the manager should be able to create the virtual layout of the

restaurant using their POS. Once the customer journey begins, the POS would create/retrieve the customer’s profile, and

assign them a vacant table and a waiter. The waiter would give the customer a tablet with the menu on it so that timed

specials are automatically displayed. The waiter is required to be present to make the order so that they can be modified,

such as if the customer has any allergies. The POS at this point would record the time of the order and update the inventory

system to reflect what ingredients are needed. The chef is alerted, and once prepared, the waiter is alerted to serve to the

customer. At checkout, the POS is able to either split the bill or charge the entire table, and then update the table layout to

show vacancy.

ICE-B 2017 - 14th International Conference on e-Business

For every dish ordered, the time and price are

tracked at the time of order. The cook is

immediately notified, and the inventory is decreased,

including the ingredients, before the dish has

finished being made.

At payment, customers are asked if they need to

split the bill, charge one person only, or charge the

entire table.

A set of GUIs has been proposed to accompany

future POS systems to ensure all the essential

features are easily accessible. The GUIs to assign

customers their seats (Figure 3), the digital menu to

be given to diners (Figure 4), and the order screens

(Figure 5) have be designed.

Figure 3: The first GUI used by the waiter when a

customer enters a store and is assigned their seat. The

waiter would either A) retrieve the returning customer’s

profile, or B) identify the user with their physical

attributes to save time. When the customer pays, they will

be able to create an account if they have not. C) A seating

arrangement should be available and D) be colour coded.

The table selected will be the entered into the seating table

automatically. E) Decoration should also be taken into

account. F) The staff serving the customer is tracked.

Figure 4: The digital menu offered to the diner in which

the waiter can get the food details from to put into their

order in Figure 5. It should contain A) the customer/table

being tracked, B) the timed-specials that are automatically

updated, and C) food categories to track which items are

most popular. Each food in the menu shown should also

have their own views so the system can determine how

long a user is viewing each food.

Figure 5: The POS ordering screen used by the waiter

when taking order. It should contain A) categories for

better report of data, B) the customer/table being tracked,

C) the feature to modify the order and/or add notes to

determine what the customer wants, and D) the feature to

move on to the next customer while putting the current

customer on hold.

Based on our finding, a new customer journey

map has been proposed along with the

recommendation of using a tablet. GUIs have also

been designed to go along with the POS.

6 CONCLUSION

The list of distinct features has been identified and

ranked from most to least important ones. A number

of POS systems have been reviewed and their

customer journeys mapped out. Through our

literature review, a list of essential requirements

needed for a restaurant to succeed has been

determined, and matched with the distinct features

found in the POS.

It is clear from this finding that restaurants must

be able to track all the processes in the restaurant,

including customer details, their orders, and the

ingredients being used. Being able to provide an

interactive digital menu, such as on a tablet, is also

beneficial as it allows the customer to learn more

about the menu items, and also increase the

reliability of food that are on timed specials to come

into effect at the exact times they are scheduled to be

on special. With these data, they will be able to have

better inventory and wastage management, which

can then be used to organise the menu more

efficiently. Being able to automatically alert staff is

also an important feature as it creates standards.

Our future work will include interviews with

restaurant owners. This will include carrying a

specific study with a restaurant currently in business,

and utilising their data to determine the

authentication of the results found in this paper.

Fine Dining Restaurant Framework Development and Survey

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