Most round-ups of restaurant software are written by somebody selling it. So is this one. That is why it is organised around the questions worth asking rather than the logos worth looking at, and why it names the tools that beat us at the things we do not do.
First, work out which problem you are actually buying for
Nearly everything in this market is one of four things wearing very similar marketing. Deciding which one you need rules out most of the list in an afternoon.
Rostering. You need rotas, working-time rules and a payroll export. gastromatic, Papershift, Planday, 7shifts. Any forecast inside these is usually last week's wage bill rather than a view of next week.
Reporting. You have several systems and no single view of them. Tenzo and the analytics tools. The number of connections is the product.
A full operating system. Several sites, a head office, and the appetite to replace five tools with one. Nory, Nesto, and the big American platforms above them.
Demand forecasting. You want to know how busy next Saturday will be so you can prep and order for it. A much shorter list, and the one we are on.
Then, five questions worth asking any vendor
Can I see it get things right before I pay? Ask to see yesterday's forecast next to yesterday's actual takings, inside the product, every day. If accuracy only ever appears as a number on a website, you have no way of checking it.
How much history do you need before it works? Answers range from six weeks to a full year before anyone will forecast at all. It decides how long you pay before you get anything, and it is almost never on the pricing page.
Do you connect to my till, specifically? Not to the category, to your exact system. For a German independent on orderbird, ready2order or Tillhub, the honest answer from most vendors is no, and it is worth asking what happens then rather than assuming.
Does it separate in-house from delivery? One table might be four covers; a delivery order is one or two. Anything that adds them into a single number is describing a business nobody runs.
Can this be used to audit my staff? Ask it straight out. In a cash business the answer decides whether the tool is yours or somebody else's, and nobody volunteers it.
What you might use instead of us
The alternatives a Berlin independent realistically weighs up, including the two that cost nothing.
Nory is the full operating system, and it is good at it. If you run several sites with a head office and you want forecasting, rotas, stock and payroll in one place, it does more than we do. It starts at a price a single café does not pay.
Tenzo is reporting. If your problem is that four systems each hold a piece of the picture, that is the product to look at.
Nesto sits in the same operating-system category as Nory, aimed at groups.
Nostradamus prices per employee, which tells you what it is really for: labour. If rotas are the thing keeping you up, look there first.
A spreadsheet costs nothing and it is what most kitchens actually use. It works right up until the day you need it to know that the terrace was closed in July, or that last Thursday had a fair in town. It cannot hold the exceptions, and the exceptions are most of the error.
Your till's own reports also cost nothing and are genuinely useful for what happened. They do not tell you about next Saturday, which is the decision you are actually making at 9pm on a Friday.
If it is the forecast you need, the weather and Berlin's event calendar for your venue are free forever, and the forecast is €79 a month per venue. Two minutes to connect your till, cancel whenever you like.