How to choose a restaurant system: a checklist

What you're really choosing

Most restaurants need two jobs done. The first is taking money: card payments, cash, tax receipts, end-of-day reports. That's the POS. The second is moving orders: from the guest or the waiter to the kitchen, through a menu, a table QR code, a handheld or an online ordering page, and onto a kitchen display or printed ticket.

All-in-one platforms such as Toast, Square, Clover and Lightspeed do both. Ordering tools such as qmen.us, MENU TIGER, me&u, sunday or Owner.com focus on the second job and sit next to a POS. Knowing which job you're actually trying to fix usually cuts the list in half.

Why a checklist beats a demo

• Demos show features, not fees. The card rate, contract term and hardware lock-in are on the pricing page or in the fine print, not in the demo.
• Tax rules are non-negotiable. In Québec, restaurants must give every customer a bill produced by a certified sales recording system linked to Revenu Québec's WEB-SRM. In the UK, VAT-registered retailers should give a VAT receipt when asked. In the US, the POS must apply the right sales tax.
• Switching is expensive. Locked hardware, multi-year contracts and menu re-entry are the real cost of a wrong choice, so it pays to check them first.
• The busiest night is the test. Offline mode, kitchen routing and how fast a waiter can enter an order matter more than any report.

Quick comparison of common options

A short list for the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand, from each vendor's published pages.

qmen.us

When qmen.us fits: you already take payments with a terminal or register, and you want a menu with table QR codes, a waiter app on phones, a kitchen display with prep stations, a ready board on the TV, and printed kitchen tickets, all for free, with no commission and no contract. It runs in the browser on devices you own and keeps kitchen printing going offline. When it doesn't fit: you need card or online payments, tax receipts or Québec certified billing from the same system, integration with DoorDash, Uber Eats, Deliveroo, Just Eat, Menulog or SkipTheDishes, inventory, reservations, a floor plan, several locations under one account, or a 24/7 phone line. Support is a small team in Brazil via the contact page and WhatsApp.

Toast

Toast suits full-service restaurants that want one vendor for everything, including payroll, with 24/7 support and an offline mode that keeps accepting cards. In the US the Starter Kit is from $0 a month (new, single-location customers, up to 2 terminals) and Point of Sale from $69. It only runs on Toast-approved hardware, and the card rate is quoted on request.

Square

Square suits counters, cafés and food trucks that want to start at $0 a month: the Free plan includes menu management, pickup and local delivery and a branded online ordering page, with 2.6% + 15¢ per in-person sale in the US, 1.75% in the UK and 1.6% in Australia.

Lightspeed Restaurant

Lightspeed suits busy venues with floor plans and several areas: Starter at 69 USD, Essential at 189 USD and Premium at 399 USD (period not stated on the page), KDS at $30 per screen per month, with order and pay at table and online ordering included and an offline mode.

Epos Now

Epos Now sells POS hardware bundles in the UK: its Complete Solution bundle was listed from £149 (with a crossed-out £849) when we checked, and that offer requires a 12-month payments and support subscription from £25 a month. Card rates aren't published on the page. A fit for UK owners who want a one-off hardware purchase with a low monthly subscription.

The checklist, step by step

Go through these in order and cross off any system that fails a step.

1. Tax receipts and fiscal rules

   Confirm the system produces the receipts your location needs: sales tax in your US state, VAT receipts on request in the UK, and certified billing linked to WEB-SRM in Québec. If a tool can't (qmen.us can't), it must work alongside a POS that does.

2. Payments and card fees

   List the payment methods your guests use (chip, tap, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Interac in Canada, EFTPOS in Australia) and get each vendor's rate at your monthly volume. A 0.3% difference on $40,000 a month is $120.

3. Delivery platforms

   If DoorDash, Uber Eats, Grubhub, Deliveroo, Just Eat, Menulog or SkipTheDishes bring you orders, check which ones the system integrates with. Toast lists third-party delivery integrations; qmen.us has none, so delivery tablets stay separate.

4. Hardware you own

   Count your tablets, phones, TVs and printers. Browser-based tools like qmen.us run on them; Toast requires approved Toast hardware. Ask whether new hardware would work with another provider later.

5. Offline and the busy night

   Ask exactly what keeps working without internet: orders, kitchen tickets, card payments. Toast says its offline mode keeps taking card payments; qmen.us keeps kitchen printing going through a local ordering page and syncs afterwards without reprinting.

   Tip: Unplug the router for five minutes during a test shift. What still works is what will still work on a real outage.

6. Support and language

   Check support hours and channels. Toast and Clover advertise 24/7 support; qmen.us is a small team reachable through the contact page and WhatsApp. If your staff speak several languages, check the interface languages too; qmen.us comes in 14.

7. Contract and switching cost

   Note the minimum term (Clover hardware offer: 3 years; SpotOn All-In: 2 years), cancellation terms, and whether you can export your menu and sales. qmen.us has no contract and exports reports as CSV.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

Prices checked on 28 October 2026; confirm on each vendor's site before deciding.

• Revenu Québec — Mandatory billing in the restaurant sector
• GOV.UK — VAT guide (VAT Notice 700)
• Toast — Restaurant POS pricing (US)
• Square — Restaurant POS pricing (US)
• Square — What are Square's fees (US help)
• Square — Pricing (UK)
• Square — Pricing (Australia)
• Lightspeed — Restaurant POS pricing
• Epos Now — Pricing (UK)
• Clover — Pricing
• SpotOn — Pricing
• MENU TIGER — Pricing

Glossary

Kitchen display

The wall screen that shows that prep station's queue live, protected by a password.

Waiter app

The ordering page each waiter opens through the restaurant's own link, right in the phone's browser.

Table QR code

The code printed on the table that guests scan with their phone, no sign-in needed.

Offline mode

A section of the print app's settings that makes it serve a local ordering page and keep a queue while the restaurant has no internet.

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