Restaurant POS hardware: what each part does and what to skip

Walk into a supplier and you are shown a counter covered in equipment. It looks like one product. It is really six or seven separate purchases, each solving a different problem, and a small restaurant genuinely needs some of them and genuinely does not need others. This article goes through the boxes one at a time in plain words, then says where our own software sits, which is honestly to one side of most of them.

What the pile on the counter is made of

Look at a large vendor's own catalogue and the shape is clear. Square, for example, sells a register, a handheld, a terminal, a stand, a self-service kiosk and separate card readers as different products. That is the standard set, and it breaks down like this.

The terminal is the screen the staff tap. It runs the software, holds the menu, and is where a cashier rings up a sale.

The card reader takes the payment. It is a regulated device and it belongs to your bank or your payment provider, not to your software vendor, whatever the bundle looks like.

The receipt printer prints the customer's slip. These are thermal, which means no ink. Epson's own page for a common model states speeds up to 300 mm/sec on a 3-inch roll, with Ethernet and USB built in.

The cash drawer is a metal box that opens when the printer tells it to. It has no brain and it usually plugs into the printer, not the computer, which surprises people.

The kitchen printer or kitchen screen repeats the order where the food is cooked, so the person at the counter does not have to shout.

Extras creep in later: a scale for anything sold by weight, a barcode scanner for packaged goods, a customer-facing display, mounts and cables.

What you actually need, in order

Start from the question each box answers rather than the price list.

Do you take card payments in person? Then you need a card reader, and your bank decides which one. Do you hand people a paper slip? Then you need a receipt printer, and the drawer only matters if you keep cash in one. Does the kitchen sit far from the counter? Then something has to carry the order there.

A restaurant with 12 tables and one counter often needs a card reader and one printer. Everything else on the pile is solving a problem it does not have yet.

The part that is quietly shrinking

The terminal is the expensive box, and it is the one being replaced fastest, because the customer is already holding a screen.

If the guest reads the menu on their own phone and sends the order themselves, nobody has to tap it into a terminal at all. That removes the box, the mount, the training and the repair. It also removes the typing mistakes, which cost more than people admit.

This is where our own product sits, and it is worth being exact about it. Get Menu sells no hardware. The POS add-on runs on a tablet or phone, prints to a receipt printer and opens a drawer wired to it, but drives no card terminal.

What we replace, and what we leave alone

The menu lives on your own address on getmenu.ae, included from the first day, with 12 page layouts to suit how your menu reads. A code is generated for every table, with a designer for the card and a print pack emailed to you, ready for the printer you already own. The table is the address, so the ticket knows which one ordered.

When a guest orders, three messages go out over WhatsApp: a confirmation to the customer, a ticket into your managers' group, and a dispatch link with the GPS pin dropped at checkout for whoever takes it out. That is the kitchen screen and the runner, done with phones the team already carries.

Every line is priced again from your live menu at checkout, so what the guest saw is what they pay. Counts per item fall as orders arrive, and options carry counts of their own, so one finished sauce does not remove the whole dish. Invoices carrying your tax registration number download as a PDF that anyone can print on an ordinary office printer. Regulars collect stamps toward a reward, and the loyalty card sits in the card holder on their phone updating itself, so a card that fills after 6 stamps needs no plastic and no app to install.

What we do not do: we sell no hardware, drive no card machine and take no online payments. The POS add-on can use a printer and cash drawer you connect. Payment is cash or your card machine at the door, which stays exactly as it is today.

"We started with the kitchen ticket as a WhatsApp message because the kitchen already had a phone in it. A kitchen screen is there if you want one, but nobody has to buy a screen to read an order." — Tanzeel ur Rehman, co-founder of Get Menu

The costs that arrive after the purchase

Hardware is priced as one number and paid for as several.

A busy counter can get through 60 orders in one evening, and every slip is a paper roll edging closer to empty. Rolls run out on the busiest night. Mounts and cables break. A terminal that fails on a Friday needs a spare or an engineer. Every new member of staff has to be taught the screen, and staff turnover in food service is high everywhere. A device tied to one vendor's software also ties your next decision: changing software now means changing boxes.

Second-hand equipment lowers the first number and raises the rest, which is worth thinking through before you buy a used terminal.

A short buying list for a small place

Buy the card reader your bank supports. Buy one printer if you hand out slips, and a drawer only if you hold cash. Put the menu on a page your guests can open themselves, and let the orders arrive on the phones your team already has. Add a kitchen screen when the shouting genuinely stops working, not before.

For more detail, restaurant POS systems covers the software side, iPad point of sale covers tablet setups, and used POS systems covers buying second hand without inheriting somebody else's problem.

You can try the ordering side for fifteen days with no card asked for, on a flat monthly price after that and no commission taken from your sales. Old order details are cleared automatically after 120 days, so the customer information you hold does not pile up forever.

Frequently asked questions

What is the minimum restaurant POS hardware I need to open?

A way to take payment, and a way for the kitchen to know what to cook. For a small place that is often a card reader from your bank plus phones the team already carries. Everything else is added when a real problem appears.

Does a cash drawer plug into the computer?

Usually not. Most cash drawers connect to the receipt printer and open when the printer sends a pulse. It is worth checking before you buy either one separately.

Can Get Menu print to my kitchen printer?

No. The kitchen ticket arrives as a WhatsApp message in your managers' group instead. Invoices are PDFs, so you can print those on any ordinary printer.

Do customers need an app or a card on file?

No app, and no card details anywhere. The guest opens your page in a browser, orders, and pays cash or by card machine when the food arrives.

Is a tablet enough instead of a proper terminal?

For many small restaurants, yes. A tablet with a stand does the same job as a purpose-built terminal for far less, and it is easy to replace. The trade-off is durability in a hot, wet kitchen.