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TouchBistro

Score6 out of 10

23 Reviews and Ratings

What is TouchBistro?

TouchBistro is a complete mobile POS solution on the iPad for the restaurant industry. It allows users to manage reservations, view the menu, take orders and review sales reports with a few simple touches. Instead of servers repeatedly moving between customers and terminals for order management, servers can remain with customers and instantly submit orders to the kitchen and bar. Servers no longer need to write down an order and then enter it into a distant terminal. TouchBistro's single entry system reduces errors and increases efficiency. Menu items can be presented in vibrant color with every detail captured. Menus can be quickly and easily updated and even published to the Web.

TouchBistro review

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use TouchBistro for our day to day restaurant operations, very pleased with their Moneris integration making our service and sales reconciliation seamless. We use this product 7 days a week, the system is super reliable and has not given us any issues like some of the alternative options out there.

Pros

  • Sales
  • User friendly
  • Easy to program

Cons

  • Online sales
  • The change from being able to update floor plans on the iPads has been not as user friendly in my opinion.
  • Some of the back end organizing could be more user friendly

Return on Investment

  • Seamless integration
  • capturing all sales - unlike square who regularly lost payments
  • Time required for training

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Toast Point of Sale, Square POS and Clover

Other Software Used

Resy OS, 7shifts

Review for Touch Bistro from a Happy Customer

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Touch Bistro as our POS system for a small bar/restaurant in Sayulita, Mexico. It is an easy system for staff to operate and keep track of guest checks and inventory. Technically we have very few issues and support is generally quick to respond when we do.

Pros

  • ease of use
  • recall of information
  • reports are easily accessible

Cons

  • sometimes a little slow when using other ipads than the main one

Most Important Features

  • ease of use
  • reports
  • programming new items

Return on Investment

  • by allowing staff ease of use, therefore not forgetting to enter sales items in a timely manner
  • can go back and check previous periods for comparison purposes

Other Software Used

Microsoft Excel, Sage Accounting

Touch Bistro is quick & easy to learn!

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We currently use TouchBistro as our POS system at our small family-owned burger joint. Having everything under one umbrella helps make running the business much easier & more practical. Especially when running into problems where we only need one phone number to address the issue.

Pros

  • Quick Ordering Process
  • Reliable Merchant Account Services
  • Wonderful Customer Service

Cons

  • Perhaps a speedier mobile app with less glitches

Most Important Features

  • Merchant Account Services
  • Menu Changes
  • Bill Customization

Return on Investment

  • The lower merchant account services fees were night & day differences.

Other Software Used

Revel Systems

POS even newbies can use!

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use TouchBistro as our POS in our bar & restaurant. We have unique problem as our kitchen is actually located in a separate building, which causes communication and logistics issues. We use the TouchBistro kitchen display functionality in the kitchen as well as in the wait area so that orders are sent to the kitchen, and the wait staff can fire another course once the guests are ready. We set the system up so that only food orders go to the kitchen and drink orders go to the bar. The system is very user friendly in this regard.

Pros

  • Allows the user to set up specific food modifiers that can be used on one or more menu items.
  • Displays the kitchen orders and tracks the time they were received and shows alerts when time is getting late
  • Reporting on staff hours and breaks taken.
  • Flexibility with different tax options.
  • Splitting checks multiple ways

Cons

  • Inventory management is confusing and difficult to set up
  • Ability to search for and select one or more specific menu items and report sales on same.
  • The restriction to using only iPads and the high additional charges for adding more. These become prohibitive for us to work efficiently.

Most Important Features

  • Handling orders and sending them to the kitchen and bar as they are taken.
  • Maintaining sales history and reporting
  • Managing staff hours and reporting

Return on Investment

  • Being new to the industry, and not having a good handle on what the sales would be, TouchBistro has provided us with the ability to see the sales grow from day 1 to present.
  • We have been able, using the ability to report sales trends by category to share the profitability of the bar area vs the kitchen area with the respective managers and create a type of competition between them.
  • The Return on Investment on the system is becoming easier to see now with our continued growth over the early months where it felt like a bit of a hurdle. I use many of the reports to show the success and continued growth of the business to my partner and staff.

Other Software Used

QuickBooks Online, Microsoft Excel

Touch Bistro Review

Pros

  • The best thing about Touch Bistro is how user friendly it is! Works just like an iPhone. My younger employees hardly need any training on it.
  • Touch Bistro is very easy to set up and to maintain on a daily basis. Putting in my specific products and ingredients was simple. Adding modifiers, pricing and descriptions was simple enough. We have specials that change daily and updating the system in the morning is fast and easy.
  • Employees can clock in and out with Touch Bistro. Inventory can be tracked and updated.
  • Running reports is important in my business. Touch Bistro allows me to easily track my sales, for any period of time. I can easily find the numbers I need to pay my sales tax or do payroll. With just a few clicks I can compare my sales from month to month or year to year.

Cons

  • One of my biggest (and only) issues with Touch Bistro is that it doesn’t integrate well with the credit card processing systems we use. Currently, we use Square and while the two systems do communicate, there are some instances, such as paying with gift cards, that take a few extra steps, which can be a pain when you have a long line of customers!
  • Because my credit card processing is separate from Touch Bistro there are a few things that are hard to track. Square does a great job of marketing and tracking the marketing, but it’s not accurate for me due to the fact that I use Touch Bistro as a POS and not Square.
  • I’d love for Touch Bistro to offer more marketing techniques that are easy to use.

Return on Investment

  • The consistency of ordering with Touch Bistro has aged me money! From the customer to the person who takes the order to the person who makes the order and then back to the customer we have less room for error with Touch Bistro.
  • It can be slow during large volume times, especially if a lot of my customers are laying with credit cards or gift cards.

Alternatives Considered

Aloha POS