Food and Beverage Retailers: 5 Systems, 1 Solution

The problem Prakash Nawaledescribes here is real. I have seen it firsthand. The moment a retailer asks where their order is and nobody has a clear answer — trust is gone. One unified platform changes everything. And 𝗖𝗹𝗼𝘂𝗱𝘆 𝗕𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗢𝗽𝘀 𝟯𝟲𝟬 on 𝗦𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗰𝗲 is exactly that platform. Tag a Food and Beverage business owner who needs to see this today.

I Know it’s late but I couldn't help but put this out here, Hopefully it helps just 1 Founder who needs to hear this. I’m not the best Storyteller so pardon my delivery. I noticed a Food Vendor recently not far from where I reside, that always seems to sell, never running out of food despite the demand from customers from before 7am till late into the night, no pauses, no excuses, no disappointments, 7DAYS A WEEK, Yes!!! The Business Manager in Me was curious so I stopped by and got into a conversation with one of the Sales rep. What I found wasn’t luck, It wasn’t even the usual “hard work" talk. Turns out that they had created a system of doing things and over time perfected it to run without the owner being everywhere, doing everything. They had built: 1. A system designed for food stuff sourcing - A certain quantity and list  of foodstuff gets delivered at a certain day, time and venue so it’s expected. 2. A system for cooking - Food stuff is being prepared and portioned a certain way so that food tastes the same no matter who makes it. 3. A delivery system - Same pick up spot, same pickup time etc. 4. A payment system - If you need to make a transfer, there’s an account number pasted where you can see, a POS machine, a dedicated person to confirm your payment. 5. There’s even a system for dishing so no matter who takes over this process, their portion remains consistent. There’s a long list that was shared with me like the one about staffing (They run multiple staff shifts seamlessly yet customers can’t tell when there’s a switch. No chaos, No drop in quality, Just flow) but for the sake of time, I need to finish up work and also wouldn’t want to bore you. THE POINT I AM TRYING TO MAKE IS; Most businesses fail because of LACK OF SYSTEMS, A repeatable organised way of delivering their service. Even your Staff needs it to deliver your kind of service, else you risk them doing it their own way or any available way, most times they get confused and can't even get the job done because processes weren’t defined. Without systems, Your staff improvises, Your service becomes inconsistent, Your Customers lose trust. Customers are not loyal to effort, They are loyal to consistency. Systems ensure that your services and products are Consistently available for your Customer's Consumption. Imagine this food vendor in a street corner without Branding, Corporate Documentation and Registrations but has created a clean repeatable process that generates Consistent cashflow and I bet doesn't even that what they have is a System. Any Good Business with repeatable processes will most likely have more consistent walk-in customers to full capacity over a Big-named fancy business without a well formulated algorithm. Systems are the Engine Room of every Profitable Business, AN INCONSISTENT WORKFLOW WILL ALWAYS PRODUCE AN INCONSISTENT CASH FLOW.

We were running out of drinks and water mid-service. Not because we didn't order enough. But because no one knew we were running low until it was too late. That's the kind of problem that doesn't look like a big deal on paper until you're standing in a busy restaurant, a customer orders water, and there's none left. So as a business analyst, I sat with it. And asked a simple question: 👉 What if we automated the system and it told us before we ran out? Here's the case study. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺 Our restaurant uses CompuCash POS to take orders. But our inventory? That was managed by memory and manual checks/counts. No alerts. No visibility. No connection between what was being sold and what was left on the shelf. The barista only found out stock was low when it was already gone. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗜𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 You don't always need a developer. I am not a developer myself although I'm conversant with SQL and the likes. You don't always need a budget or you need very little budget that you wouldn't break the bank for. Sometimes you just need the right three tools talking to each other. We had: ✅ CompuCash POS — already in use ✅ Google Sheets — free ✅ Make.com — free tier (for starters) ✅ Gmail — free 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 I designed a no-code automated inventory tracking system using AI. Here's how it works: 1️⃣ A customer places an order on CompuCash POS. 2️⃣ CompuCash exports the sales data as a CSV to Google Drive. 3️⃣ Google Sheets reads the export and deducts stock automatically. 4️⃣ Make.com watches the sheet every 15–30 minutes. 5️⃣ When stock hits the minimum threshold — Make.com triggers Gmail. 6️⃣ The barista gets an email alert and reorders before we run out. No developer. No code. No stockouts. 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗱 → Real-time stock visibility across all drink items. → Zero manual checks needed from staff. → Barista gets proactive alerts, not reactive panic. → Every stock movement is logged with a timestamp. → The system scales — add more drinks, food items, anything. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝗶𝗴𝗴𝗲𝗿 𝗟𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗼𝗻 Most operational problems in small businesses aren't technology problems. They're visibility problems. When the right people get the right information at the right time, decisions make themselves. Automation doesn't have to be complex. It just has to be connected. 😁 If you're a business/operations analyst in restaurant operations or retail and still managing inventory manually — I'd love to hear how you're handling it. And if you want to build something like this, drop a comment or DM me. Happy to walk you through it. 👇 #Automation #NoCode #RestaurantTech #BusinessAnalysis #OperationalExcellence #MakeDotCom #GoogleSheets #ProcessImprovement

Your competitors aren't stealing your customers. You're letting them go. That couple who used to come in every Friday night? They didn't leave because the restaurant down the street is better. They left because nothing made staying feel special. No one remembered their usual table. No one noticed they stopped coming. No one reached out. They didn't switch. They drifted. And drifting is worse than switching. Because there was no moment to fix. No complaint to address. Just silence. Most restaurant owners spend thousands trying to get new customers through the door. Ads. Promotions. Third-party delivery apps that take 30% and don't even give you the customer's name. Meanwhile, the people who already love your food are quietly disappearing and nobody's tracking it. Here's the math that should keep you up at night: Acquiring a new customer costs 5-7x more than keeping an existing one. A regular who comes twice a week is worth thousands a year. Lose 10 of them and that's a line cook's salary gone. You don't need more customers. You need to stop losing the ones you already earned. Know who they are. Reward them for coming back. Notice when they don't. That's it. That's the whole strategy. #restaurants #customers

Restaurants are more likely to lose repeat customers to inconsistency than any single bad meal. Even small inconsistencies add up. Maybe your hours are wrong on your website, your menu lists an item that's been out of stock for a week, and your wait time is longer than you'd initially said. None of those things is catastrophic on its own, but together, they show customers that your word can't be trusted. Once trust is gone, people don't give you the benefit of the doubt. I've seen so many operators focus all their energy on acquiring new guests while ignoring the experience of the ones already coming in. I'll be the first to tell you that that's a detrimental approach. It's easier to keep someone than to win them back after you've disappointed them.

This is certainly not the post I thought I would write today. It’s regarding, in my opinion, a total customer service failure at McDonald's. Well really, a process design failure. I don’t blame the customer service representative that responded to my online complaint. I filled out the online form rather than calling, but in hindsight, perhaps I should have, or still should call. The scenario should be familiar to most of you. You order using the app for delivery, and DoorDash delivers your order. In my case, it was breakfast. The issue was a missing item that was ordered and paid for. Yes, we received one less breakfast sandwich than what was ordered. The major failure here is, of course, that we did not receive what we paid for. But the real issue is that because my order was delivered, I have to contact DoorDash. This is the process failure. The thing is, DoorDash did not complete my order. Someone at McDonalds read the order, gathered the food and drink, placed it in the bag, “sealed” the bag with sticker so that it would be obvious if the driver opened it and took something out. The driver simply picked up the bag and delivered it. Quite quickly I might add. You see, why do I need to contact Door Dash when the driver had nothing to do with putting the food in the bag? Is it really the assumption of McDonalds that they took the sandwich? I have a feeling if I call Door Dash, they will tell me to contact McDonalds as they have nothing to do with a missing item. And they don’t. Everything was done at the restaurant. It’s the restaurant’s fault. So, the CSR was just doing their job, as that is what they were trained to do. If it is a delivery, send the standard template message that I need to contact Door Dash. The irony here is that I worked on the project that implemented their customer service system. Assuming they are still using the same one. Come on McDonalds, you can do better. Or maybe I am wrong and it really is up to DoorDash to fix this. I really don't think so, but I am sure someone will let me know if I am.

Restaurant owners love credit card reps 😆 Okay… probably not. And honestly, I get it. Too many bad companies have made payments a headache. But a good processing rep should be more than someone who throws out a rate and disappears. They should be like a right-hand helper you can actually call when you need something. Over the last 11 years, I’ve helped restaurant owners with: • Increasing sales using POS tools like promos, loyalty, and smoother checkout • Reducing admin time with better setup for reports, roles, and tip handling • Getting online ordering live and optimized with menu setup, photos, and descriptions • Breaking down statements so owners understand card brand fees vs. processor fees • Improving margins by spotting leaks like refunds, voids, chargebacks, and fee creep A good rep should help your business run smoother — not just hand you an 800 number. If you’d rather have a payments partner who helps you run smoother, let’s take a quick look at your current setup. Call/Text: 402-920-2286 bsliva@integritymerchantsolutions.com

Earlier today I posted about POS reliability and a Toast sales executive called me out for getting a detail wrong. She was right. I should have been more precise. So I did my homework. Here's what I found — all public record: Oct 20, 2025 — AWS outage took Toast offline nationwide for ~15 hours. Restaurants couldn't process payments. Toast had to publish a dedicated recovery page. (Source: Nation's Restaurant News, Restaurant Business Online) June-July 2025 — Toast's payroll system was breached. Social Security numbers, bank accounts, driver's licenses exposed. Filed with Massachusetts Attorney General. (Source: MA AG filing, ClassAction.org) Aug 2023 — Toast went down during dinner service. The system accepted credit cards but didn't deposit funds or register sales. For 15 hours. (Source: UpDownRadar user reports) June 2023 — Toast quietly added a $0.99 fee to customer orders without telling restaurants. Reversed within days after national backlash. (Source: Fox Business, Restaurant Business Online) Dec 2020 — Online ordering outage significant enough that Toast built a public FAQ page and issued credits to affected restaurants. (Source: https://lnkd.in/gw9b4Gjt) 319+ tracked outages over the past 3 years, per StatusGator. I respect what Toast has built — serving 85,000+ restaurants is no small feat. This isn't about tearing anyone down. But this is exactly why we built KwickOS as a hybrid system. Internet goes down? Your restaurant keeps running. Full menu, full payments, full operations. No napkin math. No lost sales. Every fact above is publicly verifiable. I learned something today: if you're going to make a claim, bring receipts. #RestaurantTech #POS #KwickOS #Reliability #RestaurantOperations #CloudPOS

I’ve noticed a small but recurring problem across quick commerce platforms I order from; missing items in the basket. And oddly, it seems to be increasing rather than reducing. The first time I noticed it was with a BOGO ice cream offer. The extra ice cream never arrived. When I tried to complain, I discovered there was no option to report a BOGO offer not being honoured. I dropped it. Some time later, my maid asked why I hadn’t ordered frozen peas. That’s when I realised I had actually paid for them, but they were missing from the delivery. I logged in, complained, and got a refund within minutes. Fair enough. But to be honest, I would not check the list, once I send it. When I order from my neighbourhood kirana, the grocer sends a list of items with the price of each one, and marks what’s unavailable. It’s simple, transparent, and entirely trustworthy. I don’t remember ever having an issue. With quick commerce, I send the list and assume technology will ensure that all items are delivered. Or, I will be refunded if they are not available. Apparently, the system is not working that way. Some platforms have found better ways to handle this. With Country Delight, you pay for what is actually delivered. If vegetables weigh slightly more, you pay a little more. If something isn’t available, it simply doesn’t get billed. Amazon Now usually deducts unavailable items automatically, or the delivery agent informs you and cancels them. Meanwhile, I’m back to checking every item in the bag. And honestly, it feels like counting cash from an ATM. Feels like stone-age in an era that promises convenience. And the word ‘quick’ is a little redundant if it reaches quickly, but it adds to my time load! Has anyone else experienced similar issues? And if so, I am curious to know how QC platforms should solve for them.

Orders are growing. Revenue is going up. But profit? Still stuck. This is where many restaurant businesses get confused. More orders should mean more profit. But in reality, things start breaking: • Discounts are applied blindly • Delivery costs keep rising • Kitchen gets overloaded • Mistakes increase → customer complaints follow At this point, growth is not helping you. It’s exposing what’s not working inside your system. Because the real issue is not demand. It’s 𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗼𝗳 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗹 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆. You don’t clearly see: * Which orders are actually profitable * Where delays are happening * Which customers need incentives (and which don’t) And without that, decisions become guesswork. The restaurants that scale profitably do one thing differently: They build systems that give them control over operations, orders, and customer behavior. Not just more sales. But smarter operations behind the scenes. If you're planning to grow your restaurant business, make sure your system can handle that growth. Otherwise, more orders will just mean more problems. #Restaurant #SME #Bussiness #RestaurantManagement #Pos #SOFTWARE #SASS #Founder