Stay open when the kitchen's slammed: takeaway busy mode keeps Friday's online orders coming in

7.15pm, Friday. Six tickets on the rail, the fryer's full, and someone reaches over and switches online ordering off. For the next half hour, every hungry person who opens your page sees "closed" and orders from the place down the road.

A takeaway busy mode keeps those orders coming in. The kitchen just gets the time it needs.

Ordering switched off

• Customers see "closed" and go elsewhere
• Someone has to remember to switch it back on

Busy mode on

• Customers see a longer wait and still order
• The kitchen gets extra prep time

Busy shouldn't mean closed

Switch on busy mode and GofoodPOS adds prep time to new orders. Customers see a longer wait and order anyway. It won't cook any faster, but you stop turning orders away. You can still pause ordering completely if you need to (orders and kitchen).

Half an hour switched off can cost you £108

The average takeaway order is around £27 (Aqua survey). Say switching off for 30 minutes turns away 4 orders. That's £108 gone in one Friday, as an example, and those customers may not come back to try you next time.

Out of prawns? Take prawns off, not the whole menu

Mark one ingredient out with a stock tag. Every dish, size and add-on that uses it comes off your online menu together, and goes back on together. No refunds, no "sorry, we're out", and the rest of the menu keeps selling.

1. 1Prawns run out at 8pm
2. 2Tag prawns as out of stock
3. 3Every prawn dish comes off the menu
4. 4Everything else keeps selling

Every order gets seen, even when it's mad

Online orders keep sounding a loud alert until someone accepts them. If one does slip through, it shows up as a missed order in your end-of-day email, so you know which nights need another pair of hands.

Before

• Notification sound lost under the extractor
• Order found 20 minutes later

With GofoodPOS

• Alert keeps sounding until it's accepted
• Missed orders listed in tonight's report

Phones are the other Friday leak: caller ID on the till gets regulars' calls done faster. See how GofoodPOS fits a chippy with a queue out the door or a Chinese takeaway.

Want Friday nights that stay open? Start a free trial and we'll set busy mode up with you.