How to take collection orders through your own restaurant website

To take collection orders through your own restaurant website, you need an online menu guests can order and pay from, a way for those orders to reach the kitchen at the right time, collection slots the kitchen can meet and a clear handover at the door. The ordering page can be a hosted page from your ordering or POS provider that your site links to, a widget embedded in your own pages, or a custom build using the provider's API.

Ordering on your own site keeps the order, the payment and the customer relationship with you, without a marketplace in between. The trade-off is that customers have to find your website, where a marketplace app would have put you in front of people already browsing for dinner.

Why take collection orders directly?

Marketplace apps can bring customers who would not otherwise find you, and they charge restaurants for that under their own terms. Direct collection orders avoid those charges, though you still pay card processing on each payment and any fees your ordering provider charges.

The bigger benefit is the relationship with the customer. Someone who orders directly can be recognised next time, earn rewards if you run a loyalty scheme and hear about a new menu if they have agreed to marketing.

What are the options for ordering on your website?

Whichever you choose, web orders should arrive in the same POS and kitchen workflow as dine-in orders. A separate tablet that pings with web orders is easy to miss on a busy night, and re-entering orders invites mistakes. Ask any provider to show you a test order travelling from the website to the kitchen before you commit.

How to set collection slots the kitchen can meet

Collection goes wrong when food is not ready at the promised time, or was ready long before and has gone cold. Plan capacity before you switch ordering on:

• Limit orders per time slot based on what the kitchen can produce alongside dine-in covers
• Set a minimum lead time, and lengthen it on busy nights
• Give a manager a way to pause ordering or extend lead times during a rush
• Time when orders reach the kitchen so food is finished close to the collection slot, if your system supports it
• Stop taking orders a set time before the kitchen closes

What does the ordering page need to show?

Show prices, including any packaging charge, along with modifiers, the collection address and instructions, and the hours you take collection orders. Take payment online when the order is placed, so an order that is never collected has at least been paid for.

Allergen information has a specific legal requirement here. Ordering by phone or online counts as distance selling, and the FSA's technical guidance says businesses selling non-prepacked food this way must make mandatory allergen information available, free of charge, before the purchase is concluded and at the moment of delivery. That guidance covers England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

For collection, a practical approach is allergen details on the ordering page, a question at checkout asking about allergies, and written information with the order at handover, such as a label on the container. The FSA's best practice guidance recommends written allergen information both before the food is ordered and when it is delivered. This is general information, so check the FSA's current guidance for your situation.

How to run the collection handover

• A clear collection point away from the dine-in queue, with a sign
• Order numbers on the bag and the confirmation, checked against the customer's name
• Hot and cold items bagged separately and sealed
• A message to the customer when the order is ready, if your system can send one
• A rule for orders still uncollected at closing time

How to get customers ordering direct

Put the order button at the top of your homepage and menu page, on your social profiles and in confirmation emails for table bookings. In the restaurant, a QR code at the till or on takeaway bags points regulars to the direct route. If customers have agreed to marketing, tell them when collection launches and when the menu changes.

How Tiquo handles collection orders

Tiquo's collection service is Order & Pick Up. Guests scan a QR code to browse your menu and order ahead, pay on their phone and collect at the counter when the order is ready. You choose which sublocations offer it, and Order to Table can run alongside it for guests already seated.

Orders come into the Tiquo POS alongside dine-in orders and use the same menus, so the team works from one list instead of a separate tablet. Payments run through Stripe, which Tiquo's payments are built on. Guests collect when the order is ready rather than at a booked time, so let them know how long orders usually take, for example in your menu descriptions or on a sign at the counter.

On your website, Tiquo's Website SDK adds passwordless customer login and a signed-in customer's profile, orders, bookings and wallet cards to sites built on Webflow, Framer, WordPress, Wix or plain HTML, without a build step. Its published features do not include a menu and checkout for collection orders, so if guests must be able to order from your own pages, ask Tiquo what would work for your build before you plan around it. Our guide to QR code ordering covers the in-venue side.