Accept orders for counter pickup

What an order without an address is

Counter pickup, in qmen.us, is a regular dining room order opened at a place you called Counter, instead of at a table. There's no separate pickup mode: the customer's chat offers two paths, I'm at the restaurant and At home, and only the second asks for an address. With no address, nothing is treated as a delivery — the order carries the label of the place where it was created.

Underneath, it's the usual order. The waiter, or the customer through the chat, opens the order at that place, the items show up on the kitchen display labeled Counter, and the customer follows Ordered, Preparing, Ready and Served on a link with no sign-in. It all runs in the browser: there's no app to download from any store.

Why it's worth accepting counter pickup

• You don't have to wait for a new feature. A place called Counter uses everything that already exists: table setup, the waiter app, the kitchen display, customer tracking. You can start today, with a thirty-second setup.
• The kitchen knows where it came from. The card arrives with Counter in the same corner where they always read Table 7, with the customer's name right next to it. Nobody has to guess whether it goes out to the dining room or waits on the counter.
• The customer stops asking how much longer. Whoever ordered through the chat gets a link that shows Preparing and Ready live. That's one less question for whoever is behind the counter and one less trip to the kitchen.
• It's yours, and it's free. qmen.us is free for the restaurant and charges no commission per order. The money doesn't even go through us: PIX is arranged directly between customer and restaurant, and the customer's contact stays with you — it's not a marketplace.

How to set up the counter flow in 6 steps

Six steps: two for setup, which you do only once, and four that become the routine for whoever is behind the counter.

1. Create a place called Counter

   On the Dashboard, open Tables and tap New table. Under Number or code, type something like counter — it goes into the link and can't be changed later, so the QR code stays stable. Under Name (optional), type Counter and tap Create table. Since the name isn't just a number, qmen.us shows Counter exactly as you wrote it, without sticking Table in front.

2. Open the order at Counter in the waiter app

   Whoever's serving opens the waiter link and, under New order, taps the Counter square. The bottom button becomes Open Counter. If there's already an order there, it becomes New order · Counter — the same place can hold several orders at once. Then just tap the menu items, or Add custom item for anything not on the menu.

3. Give the order the customer's name

   In the Order name (optional) field — the example itself suggests John, counter, birthday — type the name of whoever's picking it up. It appears next to the Counter label on the kitchen display, in the waiter's active orders list and at the top of the customer's tracking page. It's what turns three identical bags on the counter into three names.

4. Or let the customer order on their own through the chat

   With Self-ordering with the virtual waiter (chat) turned on in Settings, your public page gets the Order online button. The customer fills the cart, taps Finish order and answers I'm at the restaurant; in the list of places they tap Counter, leave a name and phone number, and the order lands in the kitchen signed by the virtual waiter.

   Tip: In that list the chat puts Table in front of every place, so your Counter shows up as "Table Counter". It's just the label for that question — on the kitchen card and on the tracking page it's back to Counter.

5. Follow it to READY and call the customer's name

   The card enters the kitchen display with the Counter label and the customer's name. The kitchen taps READY? item by item, or ORDER READY? all at once. In the waiter app, that order's chip lights up right away, and on the customer's screen the step changes to Ready. Then just call the name and tap Serve order.

6. Take payment in person and free the Counter

   Dining room orders are paid in person: the chat only asks about payment for delivery. On the order screen, the waiter taps Close bill — R$ 42,00, then Mark as paid and Free table to release the Counter for the next customer. If you don't want the place's public page to show the previous order, use Hide from table page.

Frequently asked questions

Glossary

Counter

A spot you create under Tables with the name Counter. To qmen.us it's a table like any other, with its own public link and QR code — what changes is the label the kitchen and the waiter read on the card.

Place label

The text shown in place of the table on every screen. When the name is just a number, qmen.us writes Table 7 or Tab 7; when it's a name, like Counter, it shows exactly what you wrote.

Custom item

An item the waiter types in on the spot, picking its prep station by hand.

Order name

An optional field of up to 60 characters that becomes the order's title on the kitchen display, in the waiter's list and on the customer's tracker. At the counter, it's the name of whoever is picking it up.

Free table

The owner's action that hands the table over to the next guests; it leaves the occupied count and the order drops off the live list.

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