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Restaurant POS Systems?
glamslam asks: "As the newly appointed technology director at a large restaurant chain, I've been given the task of evaluating and implementing a Point of Sale (POS) system. The main goal is to save costs on deployment across hundreds of restaurants. Another goal is to find a solution that is flexible enough to adapt to our unique operational model. Most of the vendors' products I have seen are based on Windows. I prefer the openness, flexibility, and cost-savings of Linux, yet I do not want to build the system from the ground up. Has anyone been involved in POS projects and managed to put Linux into the mix?" Are there any features that restaurants need that your traditional POS system may not include?
You should google before doing an ask slashdot question. This question is however a good question for us all. I think dennies uses linux based pos units... burlington coat factory switched everything to linux... i think including the pos units... Perhaps a google search, or just calling those companies up and asking who supplied their pos systems would be a good start.
I'm not sure how far along this project is...
but BananaPOS seems to be decent.
http://bananapos.com/pos/index.html
ChiefArcher
Jamie Zawinski (former Lucid Emacs / Netscape hacker) looked into the option of Linux POS devices for his nightclub. You might want to read about his experiences.
sPh
I am sort of in the same boat as the original poster, and all I can say is what we did to make it work:
We went with Aloha for the POS systems, and then I slapped in a box we were going to throw away and use it to grab all the figures and dump them to the home office via some trivial bash scripts.
I begged and pleaded with the management team of the restaurant to find something linux based, but
nothing was mature enough that fit the bill.
Good luck.
Once all the POS systems at Fuddruckers were down because thir windows based network was infected with NIMDA. They couldn't figure out how to sell hamburgers without them. Four people had to suggest using pen, paper and a calculator to record sales before the manager would do it. You are right to want to avoid windows, but you need to be ready to stay open if all the computers crash even on Linux. Keep the old style guest checks on hand, and some pocket calculators.
How ya like dat?
You missed the big one: spill proofing.
We addapted a retail POS system for restaurrant use back in the 80's, and at the end of the first trial month about a quarter of the hardware had been killed by the environment. IMHO, it's harsher than outdoors (when was the last time it rained ethanol, carboxilic acid, acetic acid, etc.?) and harsher than many industrial environments (where at least the people get more training).
-- MarkusQ
One company I work for owns cruise ships. They decided to upgrade their POS systems two years ago, deployed across three vessels and in one land-based facility. I evaluated several systems, including most industry heavyweights like Squirrel, Sabre, and Micros. I decided to deploy RCS. They were by far the most affordable and flexible for our rather unique operation (our restaurants move, they can't be affordably directly networked together with any reasonable throughput to a centralized location, and our business deals with a lot of pre-sale.) The company is based in Portland, Oregon where the company I work for is based, so that was an added bonus.
The owner of RCS, Eric, is also the programmer of the software. He is on top of his game, is very down to earth, and has a quality support staff working with him, though I have rarely needed them because the software is so well realized for what it does.
The version we use runs on DOS: fast, stable, simple. You can use any old hardware without a hiccough. We use Quantum Snap servers for centralized storage. Use any pc you want for your credit card processing which doubles as a mirror for the data on the quantum in case of failure. CAT-5 ties the workstations together. All the data can be exported as CSV's so there isn't any lock-in as far as your history.
RCS doesn't lie to you about the ridiculous markups that occur in the restaurant industry on the hardware side; they will let you roll your own should you choose as the software is hardware agnostic, though I did install industrial-grade workstations with spill-resistant touch panels and cases. Don't skimp on the hardware you put in the hands of your wait staff; any money you think you are saving up front will be lost the first time it fails, and they will come up with the most creative ways to break things you have ever seen.
Running computers in a marine environment is a challenge, due to inconsistent power and climate. We have not had one instance of hardware or software failure in the POS system itself in the two years it has been deployed on any of our vessels. We did have a UPS get dropped in a bus tub full of soapy water while connected to a running system. The network did not fail and the unit attached to the assaulted UPS worked fine when rebooted on another UPS.
I can not recommend RCS highly enough.
Wagamama is a chain of Japanese restaurants in London and other places.
The waitresses use iPaqs fitted with wireless cards to take your order. (Very efficiently I might add).
The was a rumour circulating a few months ago, that a group of costumers saw this, and hacked their network using a laptop they had, the proceeded to order and eat a three course meal for each of them, while only paying for a soda each.
I don't know if it is true, but considering the usual record for corporate deployment of wireless technology, it sounds plausible.
Linux is the biggest POS of an OS I've seen, so it should be just what you're looking for.
:-)
Welcome! It's great to see people from the third world on slashdot, especially from extremely poor areas that have been unable to afford software like Windows.
First off, most venders I spoke with are researching Linux as an option, but are waiting before they implement anything.
That said, there are a few "platform-independent" options sprouting up. Siva Corp has an interesting enterprise POS package (Web Based / MySQL backend). Tesoro's Volante has a nice looking java-based system. I've googled like crazy over this topic and found a few smaller players (BananaPOS mentioned above somehow escaped my searches).
Then there are a few Linux-native solutions such as Sicom POS.
The temptation is to look for a "mature" POS product with thousands of deployments before you make a decision such as this. This, of course, does not exist. We are now deciding to be "early adopters" because we believe in the stability, openness, and cost-effectiveness of using open platforms. Eventually we hope to have all of our back-office computers running Linux / Open Office.
If you've been around this industry for very long, then you know that this is not an industry on the cutting-edge. (Unless you are a huge, multi-unit operator). Look for a case-study on open source in the food service business in about 6-8 months. Hopefully it will be positive. (Or I will be looking for another career ;)
(1) Older or revamped OS/2 solutions... highest flexibility, but requiring someone who knows OS/2 and such to allow use of such flexibility.
(2) AIX/*NIX with OS/2, Win__, etc clients
(3) Entirely Win systems
Now my breakdown on the matter...
(1) OS/2 - will be difficult (unless you know people who are on Sears' support team or that of some other company like them) to find someone with the "expertise" to implement or expand or customize an OS/2 solution... even though it is far easier (even 5 years ago) than most every other solution.
- "Unlimited" expandability (add up all the SEARS POS terminals, catalog system and multimedia kiosks and then you see what a true network OS with a high end commercial scale POS system can do on "mere" PC hardware. The Win solutions will never approach that level. - handles POS and related systems for 3,000 departments.
- All in all, unless or until eComStation continues to gain more Win converts that the POS market on OS/2 is revitalized, it is probably not the way to go.
(2) Numerous packages can still be bought with phenomenal support (at a phenomenal cost though).
*IX solutions use some TTY interface (depends on implementation) so most client OS's work. Not very flexible or customizable.
There are GUI (Solaris) apps available, including with perl scripting support, but they are very very expensive, and (thus) usually "customized" for each client. We used one such at UUNet back in the late 90's (and I think still today, but I no longer work there).
(3) Win apps seem mostly to be VB apps, poorly written, (ask CompUSA who dumped a perfectly running RS/6000 POS setup for a "glitzy" Win95/98 in house written, crash a lot system - they never even finished transferring the whole system to it due to the problems, hence the sales and stock system is still separate and on the mainframe, or ask Best Buy and PetCo who are having nothing but crashing issues on package "off the shelf" (well, the "high-end" commercial version).
I've researched a lot of the issues, and have yet to find any people truly happy with the lower end systems, most especially on Win__. (I researched it because we were in teh process of writing our own app, but as the maker of our main development tool fell behind on their final release, we never were able to release ours (required DLLs from their final release).
From our plans based off feedback just like you are requesting, here is what I've gleaned is needed nowadays (as well as 4 years ago when we planned this)...
- integrated fax capabilites (user selectable per customer as method of invoicing and statements)
- integrated email capabilities (same)
- web integration of most or all components
- integrated account and contact database (with all components such as web, fax, email, phone, etc)
- online ordering (web integration, "shopping cart")
- barcoding and barcode reading
- credit card processing (directly or through a third party processor)
- callout feature [larger scale users (collections purposes, cold calling, re-calls, etc) or "glitz" feature for smaller users]
- image and basic catalog support (output to pdf or direct to print for those with their own high end printers)
- Caller ID incoming capabilities (larger firms for increased productivity in auto records retrieval, etc, or smaller firms "glitz" feature).
- Variable print formats (sorry those who sell these retardely overprice POS systems, but STAR and other printers are simple Epson graphics mode with a couple extra codes for cash drawer machines, or HPPL/PCL printers... you dont need to charge a fortune to add 3 extra control sequences and a manual that explains how large a graphic can be).
- Contract, form and misc document feature (to for instance, print a web contract with the related invoice with all the appropriate info - I mean, c'mon gang (who writes this expensive crap), it can even be done with a simple "mail merge" into a pre-typeset document).
- flexibility for various network schemes (really simply use of __SQL back end and appropriate net protocol to talk to the ___SQL server.
- Of course, all the standard accounting features
- Job and item numbering, serialization (serial number tracking and recording), etc.
- Item lookup by serial number or product number (makes selling and invoicing a breeze with most computer and electronic devices... the beginning of the serial number on most identifies the product, meaning, you can inventory by serial number scanning once the identifier is in the database and let the system handle all the rest. Sell a product, scan only the serial number and let the system cross reference all the rest also allowing for fully accurate SN tracking).
- Contact manager (I dont mean an address book - I mean "12/10/2001 13:45 Called Joe and advised payment late. He said check in mail." etc... with related options always available that generate Contact entries such as click "Re-Invoice" and the next entry is "12/10/2001 13:47 Generated new invoice to be sent via regular mail" (or preferred method per customer).
- EASY options to change on the fly methods of sending invoices and documents
Those are just a few off the top of my head...Rob
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