UK restaurants have been given hope of reopening from July – but in the meantime, hospitality businesses across the country are dreaming up some innovative ways to keep going.
For many, takeaway and delivery has proved one kind of solution – ranging from wine ‘milk’ rounds to cask ale in cartons and pub puddings.*
It’s not a simple answer if your business is not set up for offering takeaway, and you’re not used to dealing with services such as Deliveroo and Ubereats.
But NFS technology have now worked swiftly with a technology partner to offer an easy way to takeaway.
“As hospitality technology experts, we know speed is crucial to help UK hospitality businesses to survive – so we’ve made it happen,” says Chris Cartmell, head of sales for Aloha restaurant EPOS software by NFS.
The result is Aloha NOW, a software package that makes it easy to set up and run a takeaway offering online – and which works with ALL of the delivery services.
“Aloha NOW enables you to set up your own takeaway website easily, and connects to your restaurant EPOS software so you can import your products onto the site with the click of a button.
“You choose which platform or platforms can deliver your dishes, and you can update everything with a single click.”
How it works for you
Once a customer places an order via your website, they choose whether they want delivery or want to come and pick it up (which means your restaurant doesn’t pay a fee to a delivery service). Payment is taken automatically.
Discover how digital dining works
The order is immediately placed with your kitchen – Aloha NOW can link with kitchen automation so your kitchen screens can hold the order until it’s the right time to display them and start preparation.
“The delivery services all require different type of packaging, and the screens even show which of those is required,” says Chris.
The new package takes advantage of the benefits that have made Aloha restaurant EPOS software one of the leading hospitality technologies in the world.
Benefits include:
- Making cost and stock control easy
- Highlighting the most popular dishes
- Reducing kitchen waste
- Capturing diner data and enabling targeted offers and marketing
- Providing a pleasing customer experience where the right order is delivered swiftly and efficiently.
Many NFS customers are taking advantage of takeaways to stay busy, including MyLahore and BrewDog.*
Chris said: “Many restaurants currently have staff on furlough, and have negotiated temporary rent reductions and loans that are tiding them over for the time being.
“But it seems likely that restaurants, pubs and venues may be among the last businesses to be allowed to begin operating again. Even then, covers may need to be reduced to allow social distancing to occur.
“So the industry is doing a lot of creative thinking about what comes next and making innovative plans to make sure they stay in business.
“We feel our new package, combined with restaurant EPOS software, can not only help in the short term but will also provide restaurants, pubs and bars with a new stream of income that will stand them in good stead as we move towards a new normal.”
