Best POS for small restaurant owners: how to choose

Anyone answering the best pos for small restaurant question with one product name is guessing about your business. The right tool depends on where your orders arrive from, and small restaurants in Kuwait arrive at that question from three very different directions.

This article sorts those three, then gives the questions that shorten any shortlist.

The shape of the market you are buying into

Kuwait's foodservice market is estimated at US$2.5 billion in 2025, with quick service restaurants commanding approximately 62% market share in 2024, against a median age of 30.3 years.

That matters for a buying decision. A young, quick-service-heavy market orders on phones and expects speed. Systems designed around a long dine-in service are solving somebody else's problem.

One local fact that changes the shortlist

Many systems are sold on their tax handling. In Kuwait that argument carries less weight than elsewhere in the Gulf. PwC records that the GCC states including Kuwait signed the VAT framework agreement in February 2017, but that in Kuwait the framework agreement is currently under discussion in the Parliament while the draft law is under preparation by the government, and that there are no excise taxes in Kuwait, with a unified customs tariff of 5% on imported goods.

So do not pay a premium today for tax features you do not yet need. Do check that whatever you buy can produce a proper numbered invoice, because that requirement will arrive eventually and because your own accounts need it now.

Three shapes, three different right answers

Counter-led. Most of your money arrives from people standing in front of a staff member. Counter service means the queue is the constraint. You need a fast register, a card terminal beside it, and a printed ticket. A cafe point of sale is the category to read, and a POS machine for a restaurant covers the hardware side.

Delivery-led. Most of your money arrives by phone, message or app, and leaves on a bike. The constraint is the order coming in wrong and the driver not finding the address. A register does almost nothing for either problem. A takeaway ordering system is the honest category here.

Table-led. Most of your money sits at your tables, and the constraint is staff time spent walking back and forth. What helps is letting the table order itself, and getting one bill at the end.

Most small restaurants are one of these plus a little of another. Buy for the first, and check the second is not made harder.

Five questions that shorten any shortlist

Where do my orders arrive from, counted rather than guessed? Take last week and split it.

What breaks most often on a busy night? Wrong items, missed orders, or slow payment. Each points at a different product.

Can I change a price myself in under a minute? If a support ticket is needed, the price will be wrong for days.

What do I take with me if I leave? Ask to see the export file before you sign, not after.

Who answers the phone on a Friday night? The best software with no support is worse than plain software with a person behind it.

The mistake I see most often is a small kitchen buying for the business it hopes to be in two years. The bill arrives monthly and the extra features never get switched on, and by the time the shop really needs them the product has changed anyway. — Agha Shah Zaman, co-founder of Get Menu

Where Get Menu fits, and where it does not

We are built for the delivery-led and table-led shapes. We are not a register, so a counter-led shop should buy one of those first and read us second.

Your own ordering page. The menu lives on an address belonging to your restaurant, with 12 page layouts and a font picker, built for one thumb on a phone in a lift.

A code for every table. Generated for you, with a designer so the printed card carries your colours, and the table itself is the address. Group ordering lets everyone at the table order from their own phone into one bill.

Orders that arrive where your team already looks. A confirmation to the customer, a ticket to the managers group, and a rider dispatch with the GPS pin dropped at checkout, sent inside about 2 seconds.

Addresses drivers can follow. The pin travels with the dispatch, the building and unit are picked from a list, and a delivery fee can be set per building so a far tower is not priced like a near one.

A price that cannot go stale. Every line is priced again from your live menu at checkout, options and add-ons carry their own prices, and required choices stop an unfinished order reaching the kitchen.

Stock counts on dishes and on options. They fall as orders come in and a sold-out item greys itself out at zero, with low-stock alerts before it becomes a problem.

Reasons to come back. Stamps and tiers your regulars grow into, with a card in Google Wallet that updates itself, plus coupons carrying caps, exclusions and expiry dates.

Menu work without typing. Upload the whole menu from a spreadsheet, drag items into order, and let photos compress themselves so the page stays quick.

Invoices and numbers. Tax invoices carrying your registration number as a PDF, in one unbroken sequence, with a sales dashboard by day and item.

The price is one flat amount a month, and nothing is taken from any sale.

What we do not do

There are no online payments. The customer pays when the food reaches them, and no card details exist in the system.

We do not sell or service hardware, we do not manage staff or rotas, and we do not track ingredients or recipe costs. There is no table booking, no pre-order and no collection order type.

If your only problem is a slow queue at a counter, we will not fix it and you should not buy us for that.

Deciding in one week

Count last week's orders by where they came from. Write three numbers on paper.

Whichever number is biggest names your shape, and your shape names your category.

Then trial one product from that category, with your real menu and real customers, not a demo account. Ours runs 15 days and asks for no card details, which is long enough for a normal week and a busy one.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best POS for a small restaurant in Kuwait?

There is no single answer, because a counter-led shop, a delivery-led kitchen and a table-led restaurant have different bottlenecks. Count where your orders come from first, then shortlist inside that category.

Do I need a POS at all if I mostly deliver?

Often not first. A delivery-led kitchen usually gains more from an ordering page, a clear address for the driver and a ticket that reaches the kitchen than from a register.

Can customers pay online?

No. Payment is cash or your own card machine when the food arrives, so nothing sensitive is stored.

Will I have to buy hardware?

Not from us. Your staff use phones they already own, and customers use their own. A card terminal, if you want one, comes from your bank or your register supplier.

What happens to my data if I stop?

You export your customer list on any day, including your last. Old order details clear automatically after 120 days, and a customer can be erased without breaking your accounts.