Anything that asks a guest to install an app before they can eat will fail in a restaurant. The install is a minute of Wi-Fi, a password they have forgotten, and an app they will delete tomorrow. Half the table gives up and waves at a server, which puts you back where you started with an extra step.
What actually happens
The guest points the phone camera at the code stuck to the table. The phone offers a link. They tap it and a menu opens in the browser they already have — Safari, Chrome, whatever came with the phone. It is a web page, so there is nothing to install and no account to create.
They pick dishes, choose the options that matter for that dish, and submit. That order arrives at the till already attached to the correct table, and at the kitchen display or kitchen printer at the same time. Nobody re-keys anything.
The two settings worth deciding before you go live
Straight to the kitchen, or front desk confirms first. You can have submitted orders fire directly into the kitchen, or hold them for a server to confirm. Fast-moving drinks shops usually go direct. Restaurants with a lot of substitutions, or ones training a new team, often confirm first for the first month and then switch.
Whether guests can add to the order later. Turn this on and a guest who scans the same code again adds to the same table rather than opening a second bill. For hotpot and barbecue, where a table orders in three or four waves over two hours, this is the setting that makes QR ordering worth having at all.
Language and offline
The ordering page carries the same two names each dish already has, so a local guest reads it in the local language while your kitchen ticket stays in Chinese. Twenty-three languages, same as the rest of the system.
The QR code can run in two modes. In LAN mode it points at the till machine inside the shop, which means it keeps working when the building’s internet connection drops — see what happens when the internet goes down. Cloud mode is what you move to when you have several branches and want one view across them. You can start on LAN and switch later without rebuilding the menu.
Paying
Guests can pay online at the end of the ordering flow where a local payment channel is connected, or simply walk to the counter and settle the normal way — cash, card, stored value, or a mix of them on one bill. QR ordering does not force prepayment.
