UK restaurants have been given a glimpse of light at the end of the tunnel, with potential to reopen from July – but in the meantime, hospitality businesses are dreaming up some innovative ways to keep going.
For many, providing takeaway and delivery has proved a partial solution – ranging from wine ‘milk’ rounds to cask ale in cartons and pub puddings.*
However, it’s not a simple answer if your business is not already set up for offering takeaway, and if you’re not used to dealing with services such as Deliveroo and Ubereats.
But NFS Technology have now worked at full speed with a technology partner to offer an easy way to takeaway.
“As hospitality technology specialists, we know speed is crucial to help UK hospitality businesses to survive – so we’ve gone ahead and made it happen,” says Chris Cartmell, head of sales for Aloha restaurant EPOS software by NFS.
The result is Aloha NOW, a new software package that makes it easy to set up and run a takeaway offering online – and which works with ALL of the key delivery services.
“Aloha NOW helps you 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 – are allowed to deliver your dishes, and you can update everything with a single click.”
How it works for you
Once a diner places an order via your website, they choose whether they want delivery or would rather 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 is able to link with kitchen automation so your kitchen screens can hold the order until it’s the correct time to display them and start preparation.
“The different delivery services all require a different type of packaging, and the screens even show which of those is required,” says Chris.
The new software 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
- Reducing kitchen waste
- Highlighting the most popular dishes
- 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 dishing up takeaways to stay busy, including MyLahore and BrewDog.*
Chris said: “Many restaurants have staff on furlough, and have negotiated temporary rent reductions and loans that are tiding them over for now.
“But it restaurants, pubs and venues are likely to be among the last businesses to be allowed to begin operating normally again. Even then, social distancing may mean covers need to be reduced.
“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 way to bring in income that will prove valuable as we move towards a new normal.”
