Spain lifted the World Cup on Sunday and the summer’s third heatwave has only just broken. Pubs, bars and social clubs across the North West have just had one of their busiest trading spells in years. A packed room is exactly what every operator wants to see. The trouble starts when that packed room turns into three deep at the bar, and some of those customers decide a pint somewhere else beats waiting for one here.
Even the biggest names in the trade haven’t settled on how to handle a rush at the bar. Last autumn, Wetherspoons trialled single-file queuing at one of its pubs before dropping the policy after complaints, and a YouGov survey around the same time found the country almost evenly split: 40% preferred an orderly line, 39% preferred the traditional scrum to catch a bartender’s eye and the remaining 21% couldn’t decide either way.
Whichever camp your regulars fall into, the maths behind it is the same. Separate research from Tails Cocktails found just over a quarter of drinkers have left a bar altogether and gone to a competitor because the wait was too long. Every one of those walkouts is a sale that never happened, on the busiest night of your year.
A queue only exists because there’s one route to being served: a member of staff. Give customers other routes and the queue thins out on its own.
Self-service kiosks let customers browse the menu, build their order and pay without waiting for a free pair of hands behind the bar. Our Alfred, Stan, Themis and Élya kiosks cover everything from a compact countertop unit to a full floor-standing screen, all running ICRTouch’s SelfService software.
ByTable mobile ordering removes the walk to the bar altogether. Customers order from their own phone, whether they’re at a table inside or holding a spot in the beer garden for the next match, and the order goes straight through to the bar or kitchen. It works from a simple web link or an app-based menu, so nobody needs to download anything to get started.
Both run on the same ICRTouch software as the rest of your till estate. CCR Systems is an Authorised ICRTouch Partner, and ICRTouch’s software now sits behind over 200,000 installations across the UK and more than 30 years of development. This isn’t an untested add-on bolted onto your setup. It’s the same software family already running your bar, just with two extra front doors.
Independent research backs up what most operators already suspect. Self-service ordering can cut total order time by around 40% compared with counter service, and kiosk orders tend to run 10 to 30% higher in value than the same order taken at the till, largely down to customers browsing at their own pace and taking up a prompt to add a side or upgrade a round that a rushed member of staff wouldn’t have had time to offer. The staff you already have get to spend more time actually serving rather than taking orders, which matters most on the exact nights you can least afford to be short-handed.
For sports and social clubs, both the kiosk and ByTable recognise a membership card at the point of order, just as the till would, applying the right member discount automatically rather than relying on whoever’s serving to remember the rate. It’s the same joined-up approach already working for clubs like Oxton Conservative Club, just extended to two more ways of ordering. For a club with every seat filled for a big match or a summer social, that’s two fewer reasons for a member to give up and go home early.
Do customers need to download an app?
No. ByTable works from a simple web link, so a QR code on the table is normally all that’s needed, though an app-based menu is available too if you’d rather offer one.
Does this mean fewer staff on the bar?
Not fewer, better placed. Kiosks and ByTable take order-taking off your team’s plate so they can spend that time serving, pouring and keeping an eye on a busy room instead.
Will it recognise our loyalty or membership scheme?
Yes. Both connect to the same EPOS and loyalty setup as your existing till, so member pricing and points are applied automatically whether the order comes through the kiosk or ByTable.
