A restaurant or bar sells in person, but it is a particular kind of point of sale, with its own needs. This piece is about restaurant and bar management in Odoo POS.
Why a restaurant is a particular kind of point of sale
A restaurant or bar is, like a shop, a place of in-person selling, but the way it sells is genuinely particular. Customers are seated at tables; an order is taken at a table and tied to it; the order goes to the kitchen or bar to be prepared; the bill is settled at the end, and a bill may need to be split. This is a genuinely different selling flow from a shop, where a customer brings goods to a counter and pays. So a restaurant or bar point of sale needs capabilities a shop till does not, the capabilities for the hospitality way of selling.
The restaurant capabilities in Odoo POS
Odoo POS includes a restaurant extension, the capabilities a restaurant or bar needs on top of the core point of sale. These cover the genuinely hospitality-specific things: floor plans and tables, so an order is tied to where the customers are sitting; the means to send orders to the kitchen, so what is ordered reaches where it is prepared; the handling of a bill including the ability to split a bill; and the other things the hospitality flow needs. Together, these capabilities are what make Odoo POS suit a restaurant or bar, not just a shop.
How restaurant management works
With the restaurant capabilities, managing a restaurant or bar in Odoo POS follows the genuine hospitality flow. The floor plan represents the tables; an order is taken and tied to a table; the order reaches the kitchen or bar; the customers are served; and the bill is settled, split if needed. The point of sale supports the genuine restaurant flow, table to order to kitchen to bill, rather than forcing the shop-counter flow onto a restaurant. This is what restaurant and bar management in Odoo POS is: the point of sale handling the genuine hospitality way of selling.
Why the restaurant capabilities matter
The restaurant capabilities matter because a restaurant or bar run on a plain shop till would be a poor fit, the shop-counter flow does not match how a restaurant genuinely sells. A restaurant needs its orders tied to tables, its orders reaching the kitchen, its bills handled and split, and a plain till does not do those. The restaurant capabilities are what make Odoo POS genuinely suit a restaurant or bar, so the point of sale supports the hospitality flow rather than fighting it.
Still a connected point of sale
A restaurant or bar point of sale, with the restaurant capabilities, is still part of the connected Odoo system. The restaurant's sales are connected, reducing the genuine inventory, the food and drink stock, and the takings reaching the accounts. So restaurant and bar management in Odoo POS is the hospitality-specific way of selling, on top of a point of sale that is genuinely connected to the business's inventory and accounting. The restaurant is run on a connected point of sale that suits hospitality.
The takeaway
Restaurant and bar management in Odoo POS handles the genuinely particular way a restaurant or bar sells: customers at tables, orders tied to tables and sent to the kitchen, bills settled and split. Odoo POS includes a restaurant extension with the hospitality-specific capabilities, floor plans and tables, kitchen orders, bill handling, that a shop till does not have. These capabilities are what make Odoo POS genuinely suit a restaurant or bar. And the restaurant point of sale is still connected to the business's inventory and accounting. For how we approach Odoo, see our ERP practice.