Blog
Practical notes on running a local business — the phone, the register, the website and the orders — plus how the parts of lokal work.
3 min read
Taking phone orders without the mistakes
The kitchen is loud, the dining room is full, and the phone rings. Trying to hear a voice over background noise while writing fast usually leads to mistakes. A missed modification…
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3 min read
Why your till and your bank deposit do not match
You close the restaurant till at the end of the night. The register shows one total for card sales, the payment terminal shows another, and tomorrow your bank deposit will be a…
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3 min read
Why your hourly sales report lies to you about the dinner rush
You know you had a massive rush at seven o'clock, but the numbers on your screen tell a different story. If your sales data does not match the sweat on your floor, you cannot…
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3 min read
Packing takeaway orders so your kitchen never guesses
You hear the printer fire, the kitchen plates the food, and then the confusion starts. A driver is waiting, a customer is at the register, and three boxes of food are sitting…
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4 min read
The six things a restaurant website has to get right
A customer is standing on the sidewalk looking at their phone. They are trying to figure out if your kitchen is open. They do not want to read a welcome message. They do not have…
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3 min read
How to cost a recipe before you price it
You cannot set a menu price until you know exactly what it costs to put the dish on the plate. Guessing leads to prices that look right on the board but quietly drain your bank…
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3 min read
Auditing your software stack to cut monthly costs
You pay a monthly fee for your point of sale, another for online ordering, and a third just to manage staff schedules. By the end of the year, your restaurant software stack costs…
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3 min read
Replying to reviews without making it worse
A bad review feels like a personal attack. You spend your life keeping this place running, and someone takes a passing thought and types it into a public forum.
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3 min read
A loyalty scheme your regulars will actually use
The line is out the door and your barista is trying to explain a tiered points system to a customer holding up the queue. The customer just wants a coffee, not a maths lesson.
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3 min read
What you can control about restaurant no-shows
A party of four does not arrive for their eight o'clock booking. You turn away walk-ins to hold the table, and by eight-thirty you realize the seats will stay empty.
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3 min read
Selling a dish you just ran out of
The kitchen just called out that the sea bass is gone. Ten seconds later, a ticket prints for two orders of sea bass.
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3 min read
Stop buddy punching and pay for the hours actually worked
The schedule says the shift starts at four. The timecard says the punch happened at four. But the person walked through the front door at ten past.
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3 min read
Scheduling your restaurant staff without the group chats
You have a busy Friday night coming up, but your dishwasher just texted to say they cannot make it. Now you are scrolling through three different message threads trying to figure…
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3 min read
Why your restaurant website is slow and how to fix it
You tap the link to your restaurant's website on your phone, and the screen stays blank for four seconds. A customer trying to look at your menu while walking down the street will…
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3 min read
Fix your Google listing before you do anything else
A customer searches for your business on their phone while walking down the street. They see your Google listing, walk to the address, and find a closed door because your hours…
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4 min read
How to take good menu photos with your phone
Your online ordering page needs pictures, but hiring a photographer for every menu change is expensive. Taking them yourself often results in yellow, flat images that do not make…
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3 min read
Why closing the register matters every single day
You check your sales reports on Tuesday morning and the numbers make no sense. Monday's totals have bled into Tuesday because nobody closed the register on Monday night.
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3 min read
QR code table ordering: when it works and when it ruins the mood
You have a full dining room and two servers on the floor. A table in the corner has been waiting ten minutes just to ask for a menu. This is the exact moment an owner considers…
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3 min read
Taking orders on your own website instead of a marketplace
A regular customer walks in and orders a coffee and a sandwich. If they order in person, you keep the money, minus the card fee. If they order through a marketplace app, you give…
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4 min read
Why you miss calls, and what it takes to answer them all
It is 7:15 on a Friday. The printer is running, a customer is handing you a card, and the phone starts ringing.
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3 min read
The boring checklist for opening a small food business
You have signed a lease on a space and you want to start cooking. Before you can serve a single customer, you have a mountain of paperwork to clear. The reality of opening a food…
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3 min read
Why your business needs to own its website address
When a marketing agency builds a website for a restaurant, they often register the domain name as part of the package. Five years later, you decide to change providers, and you…
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3 min read
Changing your menu without breaking everything
You take the summer tomato salad off the line, but three days later a customer tries to order it from a forgotten table tent. A removed dish leaves a ghost behind in your…
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3 min read
Taking phone orders without getting them wrong
The phone rings in the middle of the dinner rush and you cannot hear the caller over the kitchen noise. You write down a phone order, send it to the line, and thirty minutes later…
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