Buying iPad POS systems for restaurants: count the screens first

Most comparisons of iPad POS systems for restaurants argue about software. The number that actually decides your bill is simpler and nobody puts it in the quote: how many screens does this room need, and who pays for each one.

A tablet counter looks cheap because the first device is cheap. The second, third and fourth are the same price, and they arrive quietly over the first year.

This article is a counting exercise. What each screen is for, which ones you can avoid, and where a customer's own phone does the job of a device you were about to buy.

Start with what a tablet costs to own

Apple's own comparison page lists the current range: iPad Pro at 13 and 11 inches starting at 256GB, iPad Air at 13 and 11 inches from 128GB, the standard iPad at 11 inches from 128GB and the iPad mini at 8.3 inches. Any of them will run a counter. The differences that matter to a restaurant are size, and how much you mind replacing it.

That last point is the one to keep in mind while counting. A screen behind a counter is safe. A screen carried between tables in a busy room is a consumable, and you should plan to buy it more than once. Buying an iPad point of sale system goes through the physical problems in detail, so this article stays on the count.

The four places a restaurant puts a screen

The counter. Somebody has to ring up walk-ins and print a receipt. This one is genuinely needed and it is the one every quote covers.

The kitchen. A screen showing what to cook, or a printer doing the same job on paper. Suppliers usually sell the screen because it is worth more.

The floor. One or two devices for taking orders at tables. This is where the count grows, because a room with eight busy tables cannot share one tablet, and every extra device needs its own licence with most suppliers.

The delivery or collection desk. Wherever phone orders get typed in. Often it is the counter screen doing double duty, which is exactly why the counter jams at eight in the evening.

Four positions, and only the first is usually in the demo. Ask any supplier to price the four separately, including a per device software fee if there is one, before you compare anything to anything.

The screens you do not have to buy

Here is the part that changes the number. Two of those four positions can be covered by devices your customers already carry and charge themselves.

Kuwait is close to the ceiling on this. DataReportal's January 2025 figures put internet use at 99.0% of the population, with mobile connections at 156% of the population. Practically everybody sitting in your dining room is holding a working touchscreen with a camera in it.

If a guest can scan a code on the table and order from their own phone, the floor tablets stop being a requirement and become a convenience. If a delivery customer can open your ordering page and fill in their own address, nobody has to type it at the counter while a queue builds behind them.

That does not mean you buy nothing. It means the counter screen stays, the kitchen keeps its screen or its printer, and the two positions that were about to multiply do not.

"I sold point of sale software for four years before building this, and the pattern never changed. The customer signed for one terminal and ended up with four, because every new place an order could arrive from needed its own screen. The orders that come in on the customer's own phone are the only ones that never ask you for hardware." — Anzul Aqeel, founder of Get Menu

What an iPad counter is genuinely good at

This is not an argument against tablets. There are jobs they do better than anything else.

Taking money in the room, including cash, and printing a receipt. Splitting a bill between people who are standing in front of you. Voiding a line because a guest changed their mind while the waiter was still at the table. Working when the internet drops, if the software stores locally. Local tax reporting, if the supplier has done that work for your country.

Anything with a customer physically at the counter is tablet territory. Restaurant POS sets out the rest of what a register covers.

Where our system sits beside a tablet counter

Get Menu is an ordering system, not a register. It has no cash drawer, prints no receipt and runs on no tablet you have to buy. It handles orders arriving from outside the counter.

Your menu goes on your own address on getmenu.ae, included in every plan, with 12 page layouts and a photo style you set once. You can upload the whole menu from a spreadsheet instead of typing it item by item, which is usually the difference between opening this week and opening next month.

A code is generated for every table, with a designer so the printed card matches the room, and a print pack emailed to you ready for the printer. The table is the address, so a guest scanning at table 6 produces an order that already says table 6. A group at one table can order from several phones onto a single bill.

Options and add-ons carry their own prices and can be made required, so a size or a spice level is never a note somebody has to interpret. Counts per item fall as orders come in and the item greys itself out at zero. Every line is priced again from your live menu at checkout, so what the guest saw is what the guest owes.

When an order lands, 3 messages go out: a confirmation to the customer, a ticket to your kitchen group, and for deliveries a link to your riders' group carrying the map pin the customer dropped, with the building and unit number picked from a list rather than typed as a sentence. Every message is logged with whether it arrived.

Regulars are worth keeping, so there are stamps, tiers your regulars grow into, and a card that lives in Google Wallet and updates itself with no app to install. Apple Wallet is built and waiting on a certificate. At month end you get a sales dashboard, invoices carrying your tax registration number as a PDF, and an export to a spreadsheet whenever you want it.

What we do not do

We take no online payments. Payment is cash or your own card machine, at the counter or at the door, which also means no card details sit in our system.

We are not a fiscal device and we do not print receipts at a counter. Whatever handles that today keeps handling it.

There is no scheduled ordering and no pre-order, and no collection order type. Orders are for now, inside your opening hours, for delivery or for a table.

How to test the count

Before you sign anything, spend one busy evening writing down where each order came from: the counter, a table, the phone, a delivery app.

Then price two setups. One where every one of those needs a device you own. One where the counter keeps its screen and the tables and phone orders arrive on the customer's own device.

The gap between those two numbers, over two years, is usually larger than the difference between any two software products on your shortlist. Online ordering system for restaurants explains the models for the second half. Our trial runs 15 days, takes no card details to begin, and takes 0% of what you sell, so you can put a real number in the second column instead of an estimate.

Frequently asked questions

Can Get Menu replace my iPad point of sale system?

No, and it is not meant to. There is no cash drawer, no receipt printer at the counter and no fiscal reporting. Keep your register and use us for orders arriving from tables, phones and deliveries.

Do my staff need tablets to use it?

No. Orders arrive as messages in the WhatsApp groups your team already uses, and the admin pages open in any browser on any device you already own.

How do customers pay?

Cash or your own card machine, at the counter or at the door. There are no online payments, so no card details are stored anywhere in the system.

Does it work if a customer has an old phone?

The menu is a normal web page, so it opens on almost anything with a browser. Nothing is installed and no app is downloaded.

What happens when the internet drops?

Our pages need a connection, so a dropout stops new orders arriving until it returns. This is one of the real arguments for keeping a register at the counter, and worth asking any supplier about directly.