Square for Restaurants review: plain interface, but efficient EPOS

What is Square for Restaurants?

Square for Restaurants is a cloud-based point of sale (POS) system that works on iPad and Square Register and connects with any Square card machines. It has restaurant-specific features for small single- or multi-location food places, with options to connect with additional tools outside the platform.

The software relies on an internet connection to use most features and sync with other iPad tills, but offline mode is available for accepting card transactions if the internet is down. You can set up an unlimited tills, send orders to a kitchen printer, integrate with online ordering and the many other things covered below.

Square is also an ‘all-in-one platform’ with business tools ready to use in the browser-based dashboard. Potentially, a small restaurant doesn’t need any other software, especially as payment processing is built in.

We’ve always loved Square’s huge range of complimentary functions like QR code ordering and a virtual terminal for taking orders over the phone.

Our opinion: definitely efficient, but not the most advanced

Overall, we can see great potential for Square for Restaurants as an easy, very efficient POS system for small restaurants. Our experience, however, also shows some things can be improved, like it should be possible to change font size.

The main things you are paying for on the Plus plan (compared with Free) is a highly tailored EPOS with crucial features for the hospitality sector, customisation options, coordinated orders between front and back of house and 24/7 support thrown in for good measure.

There’s also much value in the complimentary payment features, such as self-service ordering at your establishment.

Other POS systems we’ve tested have more advanced features for a similar price (or similar features for less) – but priced per iPad till. If you have multiple tills at one location, Square can work out cheaper since the monthly cost covers all the POS screens there.

Square’s many integrations mean you’re not limited in what your restaurant can do. What you can’t change is the fact it only works with Square’s own card terminals – there is no option to use other payment systems. Even so, the company can lower the rates if your business processes over £200k annually.

Pricing: one licence covers multiple tills

There are three Square POS restaurant plans: Free, Plus and Premium.

The Free plan is (surprise, surprise) free and has the fewest features. The Plus plan costs a monthly fee per business location: £69 + VAT. Contrary to many other POS providers, this fee covers an unlimited number of POS terminals as long as they are at the same address. Any additional trading locations will cost another £69 + VAT each. The price of the Premium plan is tailored around your business, so it requires your contacting Square for a quote.

You can sign up for a 30-day free trial of Plus or Premium. Otherwise, you can always use the Free plan for an unlimited time.

Fees of Square for Restaurants:

The card transaction fees are the same across Square’s products: 1.75% for all chip and PIN or contactless transactions, whether through credit or debit cards, domestic, foreign or premium cards, or mobile wallets.

When a refund is processed to a customer, Square keeps the original transaction fee paid. Chargebacks incur no admin fees.

If you want money deposited within 20 minutes in your bank account, you can activate Instant Transfers for an extra 1.5% fee. Instant payouts in a Square Card account are free, and so are next-day transfers to a bank account (weekends and holidays included).

Online transactions through payment links, your website or ordering page cost 1.4% + 25p for domestic cards and 2.5% + 25p for non-UK cards.

Square hardware for restaurants

Square Restaurant Kit bundles are available to purchase if you are not getting your own hardware elsewhere.

We can see it’s cheaper to get these kits as a bundle through Square than to buy the equipment individually, but if you already have some of the items, it could be better to source the rest separately.

For short-term events, Square can rent out POS equipment and card machines for a lower price than a purchase (quote required). This might be ideal for festivals, fairs or conferences, for example.

Pricing of individual Square hardware:

User experience

My first reaction during testing? Square for Restaurants looks too simple to believe it has all the features you need in a restaurant. But don’t be fooled – the POS system is built for efficiency, giving you features for a tailored experience.

Setting up

For a start, Square asks you to set up a lot of functions before the first time of using the app. This can be daunting for someone who hasn’t considered all the detailed ways to use a POS system.

A more intuitive way is to decide all these things in steps as you are introduced to the functions visually in the software, with detailed explanations of what it all means. I had to look up some settings in the help section before I was able to make a qualified decision on them. But you can just rush through the setup and change the settings later. Ultimately, it allows you to align the checkout flow with exactly what you need in the business.

Day-to-day use

Since the first time I tested Square for Restaurants, the app has changed immensely for the better.

The style of buttons and menus were originally so non-distinct that it slowed me down. Today, the interface looks beautifully organised and contrasted with differently-shaped buttons, better tab organisation and product images (you couldn’t add images before). This is not just aesthetically pleasing – it helps with speeding up order processing and minimises mistakes.

Food items can be organised into menus (e.g. Breakfast, Dinner) and groups (e.g. Hot Drinks, Sides) and contain variants, modifiers and other options. To further tailor the checkout, you can pin bestsellers and quick actions to any screen. This minimises extra taps, so you can finalise orders sooner.

The ordering flow is further optimised with little tweaks decided during setup. For instance, service charges could be added automatically or manually, and you can decide which screen to land on after certain actions.

But the experience is also about how the screen fits in with your surroundings. The app’s dark mode, as opposed to light mode, is less jarring in the dark interiors of bars and more intimate venues.

POS features: flexible to align with your setup

Square for Restaurants feels like an extension of the free Square Point of Sale software, with more restaurant features and customisations. It’s linked with the kitchen, other POS terminals, seating and ordering systems for a streamlined service, but only fully on the paid Plus plan.

Many features are similar to the free Point of Sale, such as all the payment methods (card reader, manual card entry, cash, cheques, vouchers, etc.), tipping and gift cards. But Square for Restaurants allows you to properly tailor these and additional features required for most restaurant setups.

Differences between the Restaurants Free and Plus plans

The interaction between front- and back-of-house operations is one of the key things you pay for on the Plus plan.

This includes:

• Kitchen Display System (KDS) app – unlimited licences included
• Deciding which foods are fired immediately to the kitchen
• Timing of courses

Another important distinction is reporting – Plus is essential for full close-of-day and shift reports.

On both plans, you get access to the Order Manager, fast entry orders, multi-location management, remote device management, open tills, dining preferences and advanced discounts.

Front-of-house features

The POS app makes order tracking easy with a visual floor plan divided into the sections and tables of your establishment. It helps with things like:

• Attaching bills to chairs and checking how long it’s been since the group arrived
• Deciding when the table should turn (e.g. after an hour) to make it easier to spot who’s likely to leave soon
• Splitting bills so each chair gets a separate receipt
• Adding payments to a ‘house’ account

We could easily go back and forth between orders and the checkout screen to take a new order. The menu is presented as you set it up, and tapping each food or drink item brings up variants, modifiers and other relevant order decisions. A tap of a button sends the order through to the kitchen.

A discretionary service charge can be added to bills automatically, whether for larger groups (determined by number of seats) or anyone. It’s also possible to apply taxes to the service charge automatically. Alternatively, you can set up detailed tipping options.

We really like the customer library where you can add personal details like an address and saved payment methods (useful for invoices and recurring orders). It’s a great place to check their buying habits and add notes about them.

Customer loyalty features like loyalty points and email marketing integration require an added Square subscription, but you can still offer discounts like Buy One Get One Free and Student Discount (% or £). And even on the Free plan, you can schedule promotions like a Happy Hour offer on all alcoholic drinks on set days and times.

Back-of-house features

The main back-of-house feature is the Kitchen Display System (KDS). This is a separate kitchen app included on the Plus plan.

It receives orders in real time, including from Deliveroo and Uber Eats if relevant, so you can prepare and organise orders efficiently.

Features for managers

The system also includes useful employee management functions.

Restaurant owners can set up staff accounts to analyse team sales, attach orders to individual colleagues, track work hours, set individual staff permissions and view timecards. And employees are required to log into the POS system with a device code for the specific register.

What about stock management? You can add stock levels for each item and automatically hide it when out of stock, but you can’t track ingredients with Square’ native software. On the Plus plan, however, it’s possible to integrate with MarketMan (costs apply) to manage food inventory and new stock orders.

Additional features

Features not included in the restaurant POS may be added through integrations with external apps compatible with Square. These apps cover functions like accounting, ecommerce, customer loyalty, inventory management and marketing.

Most of the external software costs a monthly subscription, so you should consider carefully whether it is most economical to choose another POS solution containing all the features you need, or whether you don’t mind picking and choosing integrations that work with Square for Restaurants.

Online and self-serve ordering

Square has prolifically introduced new online ordering features in recent years.

On a basic level, all merchants can label POS transactions as eat-in, takeaway, delivery and pickup to distinguish transactions in the system. But Square also offers a free online ordering page. This can be for click and collect (pickup) and takeaway deliveries, or self-serve orders within restaurant premises.

You can print QR codes to place on your tables that seated customers can scan with their phones. A web page with your menu then appears in their phone browser, enabling the customer to order and pay for meals. Food orders are sent to the POS or kitchen display system so they can be prepared immediately.

Alternatively, Square for Restaurants can be connected with online takeaway websites (Deliveroo, Uber Eats, Just Eat). This requires a monthly Deliverect subscription. As with the online ordering page, Deliverect automatically sends takeaway orders to your POS system.

What about other ways to bill customers? We recommend Square’s virtual terminal for taking payments or deposits over the phone, or sending an email invoice (also great through Square) for e.g. catering jobs.

Card payments and hardware

The Square for Restaurants EPOS only works on iPad and Square devices, not iPhone, Android tablets or computers.

Many restaurants choose to go with the classy-looking Square Register. It’s a complete countertop register minus a receipt printer and cash drawer (but they can be added). It has a tablet interface for the POS software and wired card machine for the customer.

Reporting and analytics: excellent and free

Reports are honestly one of the best parts of Square – and you don’t pay extra for it.

They’re fully accessible in Square’s browser ‘Dashboard’. The Restaurants POS app just has what is useful there.

Some of the things you can analyse in detail through Dashboard include: sales trends, payment methods, discounts, modifier sales, labour vs sales analyses, service charges, voids and gift cards.

The cash drawer is managed in the iPad app. Here, you start the day by confirming the current cash total and close the day by verifying the amount left in the till.

The Square for Restaurants app allows you to view:

• Live sales (Plus only)
• Sales reports that can be emailed, printed or customised by day, device and team member
• Cash management reports detailing paid-ins/outs, start of shift, etc. (Plus only)

It’s possible to export end-of-day reports to an Excel (CVS) file, or integrate transactions with Xero, Zoho Books or another accounting program.

Customer support and reviews

The Plus subscription includes round-the-clock phone support, while Free only has weekday support (9am-5pm). There’s also a help section online, walkthrough videos and articles answering most questions.

When you get started with the software, written prompts tell you what to do next, but some of these could be more elaborate.

Customer reviews are generally good for Square UK, but there are occasional reports of funds being held unexpectedly by Square who then ask for transaction proof as part of the security procedures. During our own tests, we have not had any problems with Square’s service or payments.

Who is Square for Restaurants best for?

If you’re already using Square for card payments, ecommerce or invoicing – and opening a café, bar or restaurant – it’s a no-brainer to try out Square for Restaurants. The software works seamlessly with Square payments and integrates with all your activities across multiple locations, but it only works with Square’s card machines (and only on iPad or Square Register).

Most other POS providers charge their subscriptions per tablet till, which quickly racks up the monthly cost.

That being said, even the Plus plan lacks advanced features like built-in ingredient-tracking and table reservations, so you’ll need to figure out what features would benefit your establishment and see if an integration is needed.

Perhaps all of your needs can be met with other restaurant POS software like Lightspeed or Epos Now.

On the other hand, if you have multiple till points at the same location, there’s lots of money to save because the monthly fee covers all of them. Most other POS providers charge their subscriptions per tablet till, which quickly racks up the monthly cost.