Watch a table-service shift closely and count the walking. A server takes an order at table nine, crosses the floor to the till, keys it in from memory or a scribbled pad, waits for the kitchen printer, then walks back. On a busy Saturday, that round trip happens hundreds of times. Each one takes a member of staff off the floor for forty to sixty seconds.
Multiply that out and the arithmetic gets uncomfortable. Two hundred round trips at fifty seconds is nearly three hours of staff time spent walking to a screen, on a shift where you were already short-handed.
Handheld EPOS ordering removes that journey. The order is entered at the table on a device in the server’s hand and sent instantly to the kitchen or bar. The server never leaves the floor.
Handheld EPOS ordering is table-side order entry on a portable device carried by staff. It runs the same menu, pricing, modifiers and promotions as your fixed terminals, so it is not a separate system to maintain: it is your EPOS system in a pocket.
PocketTouch is the handheld software CCR Systems supplies as an Authorised ICRTouch Partner. It gives staff a paperless way to take food and drink orders at the table, in the queue line or in the beer garden, with orders arriving at the kitchen or bar the moment they are confirmed.
It is worth being precise here, because the two are often confused. PocketTouch is staff-held: your team carries the device. ByTable is customer-facing: guests order from their own phone or tablet, straight to their table or seat. They solve different problems and many venues run both. We covered the customer-ordering side in Don’t Let the Rush Walk Out the Door.
The gap between a customer saying what they want and the kitchen knowing about it collapses from minutes to seconds. On a table of eight, the starters for seats one and two can be in progress before the server has finished taking seat eight’s order. Across a full service, that compression is what lets a kitchen stagger its workload instead of receiving everything in bunches.
Handwritten dockets fail in predictable ways: illegible writing, a forgotten allergy note, a modifier remembered wrongly on the walk back. Handheld ordering forces structure. If a dish has required options, the server cannot move on without selecting them. Allergen notes are attached to the item rather than shouted across a pass.
Wrong dishes are expensive twice over: you pay for the food that goes in the bin and for the goodwill you spend fixing it.
The device shows the full menu, current promotions and meal deals while the server is still standing at the table. A prompt to offer a side, an upgrade or a matched drink appears at the only moment it can actually be acted on. This is the same behavioural principle we examined in The Uber Lesson for EPOS Vendors: prompts convert when they arrive at the point of decision, not afterwards.
Outdoor areas are where handheld ordering earns its keep fastest. Without it, garden service means either a long walk each way or customers queuing at an indoor bar and giving up. With handhelds (and the Wi-Fi coverage to support them) the garden trades at the same rate as the dining room.
Handhelds rarely arrive alone. In most installations they form one part of a connected front of house:
Because it is all one system, a promotion set up once applies everywhere, and a sales report covers the whole venue rather than the tills you remembered to check.
Rising employment costs have made every hour of labour more expensive, which changes the calculation on anything that removes non-productive time. Handheld ordering does not reduce headcount so much as redirect it. The same team covers more tables because they are on the floor instead of in transit, and service feels more attentive because the server is present rather than absent.
There is a retention angle too. Walking to a till two hundred times a shift is nobody’s favourite part of the job.
The clearest way to judge handheld ordering is against your own menu and your own floor plan. CCR Systems has been supplying, installing and supporting EPOS systems for bars and restaurants since 1982, and we will walk your site before recommending anything.
Call 0151 644 8296, email contact@ccrsystems.co.uk or book a demonstration.
