Best Restaurant Management Software for Every Goal [2024]

We’ve worked with a lot of amazing restaurant management software and found solutions for everything from attracting new online customers to streamlining your front-of-house.

We’ve seen it all and I know that combing through every company, product plan and add-on package can be a chore. 

You have enough on your plate, so I pulled my favorite software solutions for you and grouped them by need. Whether you want to improve your customer experience or increase your average order size, I’m confident there’s a solution for you below. 

Online Restaurant Management

Once upon a time, great food, great service and word of mouth were enough to make a restaurant successful. But you’re in the biz and already know that’s no longer the case. With the rise of e-commerce and apps, customer behavior and expectations are evolving quickly.

Owning your online presence is more important than ever. After all, when was the last time you stopped at a new spot on a whim without checking out the menu or making sure it had 4+ stars on Google? 

Customers do their research before stepping through your door (if they ever do; many prefer to order delivery straight to their doorstep). 

If you want to attract more customers and increase your sales, you need a digital strategy to handle online orders and manage your restaurant’s reputation and visibility. If you haven’t launched these features yet, consider our favorite software solutions below.

Direct Online Orders: Owner.com

We’ll kick off our list with our favorite restaurant software solution: Owner.com. It’s designed for restaurants that want to grow their direct online orders to build better customer relationships and save money on expensive third-party app commissions. 

Our online ordering system converts 2x-4x better than your typical restaurant website to support your sales goals without taking a chunk of your profits. This allows you to meet customer expectations for fresh, hot food and convenient customer service as well as or better than Uber Eats or Doordash. 

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Key features:

• Web design and CTAs that make ordering easy and entice customers to add to their cart ASAP. 
• Smart upsells to increase average ticket sizes with “most popular” lists and prepayment product recommendations.
• Zero-commission delivery so you can offer direct orders without sharing your profits with third-party apps. 

Reviews:

Real customer reviews agree that Owner.com is an excellent way to boost your bottom line. Just check out any of our 140+ reviews on G2, like this one from James, owner of Mama’s Italian Family Restaurant:

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“This software and agency was a game changer for my business!!!! […] I set the tone for my webpage based on how I set up my own page for my business and they have matched it perfectly. (I can sometimes get it confused with my own work and often it exceeds it.) I PAY NO FEES for the platform itself though I immediately signed up for their email and marketing subscription and let me just tell you, I average about $12,000.00 a month in revenue volume that I pay NO COMMISSIONS on.”

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Alternatives:

Owner.com is best for independent restaurants that want to increase their direct order sales and pocket more profits. It’s not recommended for brand-new restaurants or major chains. 

If you’re just starting out and looking for an entry-level online ordering software, try Menufy. You can get started for free and add features like marketing and delivery as you grow. 

Owner.com is also tailored to streamline your online orders rather than in-restaurant reservations. If you’re looking for software to support your reservation management, skip ahead for an alternative that will better suit your needs.

Website Builders and Marketing: Owner.com

There are a lot of good website builders out there, but most of them aren’t built for restaurants and lack important promotional and ordering features. If you want to attract more customers and grow your online sales, we genuinely think our website builder is your best bet. 

Owner.com is designed to drive sales, so we’re the first to admit that it isn’t the most customizable website builder. Instead, we focus on getting your restaurant at the top of Google search results, encouraging customers to place orders and making ordering as easy as possible.

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Key features:

• Search-engine optimization (SEO) best practices that help Google understand your website and recommend your business and menu in search results.
• Mobile app and loyalty programs to convert casual customers into regulars with promotions, rewards and easy access.
• Automated marketing features that gather customer data from orders and loyalty programs, then send custom text and email offers to get repeat visitors. 
• Calls to action (CTAs) promoting your top menu items, customer reviews and restaurant specialties to encourage users to place an order.

Owner.com works with you to match your brand and design a unique website that sells within a month of signing on so you’re completing sales as soon as possible. 

Reviews:

Rohit S. is particularly happy to save on expensive third-party fees and focus on promotions for their restaurant, 1000 Degrees Pizza:

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“Owner.com has provided 1000 Degrees Pizza Baltimore with an easy-to-use website and mobile app that we couldn’t afford otherwise. This has saved us on third-party fees. 

The features in the app and the website are customizable as per the business/restaurant need. It has helped us promote daily specials, special coupons and reach customers very efficiently.”

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Alternatives:

If you really value aesthetics, BentoBox is an excellent choice. Their designers and developers can create a beautiful and functional site that still offers a number of marketing and sales features to support your growth. 

If you just need a simple site to get started, or you have website management experience and want a little more control over your design, we like Squarespace. 

Front-of-House Systems

You already know that a chaotic front-of-house means less than stellar service. Keeping your staff organized and efficient improves customer experiences so guests are more likely to return, and quick services and turnaround times allow you to accept more orders. 

Great software supports your staff and helps everyone earn more money through tips and increased ticket sizes. Consider some of these solutions for your store.

POS Software: Toast

Toast has a ton of features available to help you run your restaurant, but their POS system is the star of the show. Plans and budgets accommodate new startups as well as multi-location enterprise restaurants, and it even serves hybrid retail/restaurant businesses.

You can launch the Starter Kit for free and try Toast’s Flex POS terminal and cloud-based POS. If you love the trial, their advanced plans offer solid marketing and sales features like online ordering, payroll and staff scheduling.

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Key features:

• Self-ordering kiosks available for casual restaurants and quick service
• Online ordering and delivery included with the Essentials plan to increase total sales through convenient direct orders.
• Ability to connect to back-of-house systems to automate communication and orders between teams, speeding up service and reducing stress.
• 24/7 support with award-winning customer service, as well as self-serve guides and community resources to connect with other restaurant owners.

Reviews:

G2 rates Toast as an industry leader and receives plenty of praise with user reviews, too:

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“I've had a great experience using ToastTab for our restaurant/market concept. The whole system both on desktop and POS is straightforward and completely user-friendly for both our restaurant and retail needs. Using it required virtually no training, and for any questions that arose the desktop version is full of an encyclopedia of help guides and tutorials.

The reporting features are wonderful. All of the data that we need to track sales, labor, pmix, and drawer counts is right at our fingertips.”

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Alternatives:

Toast is fantastic because it’s built for restaurants first. And while Toast does have entry-level plans available, we actually like Square POS for startups. They’re also a better choice for hybrid businesses with a retail sector. 

Square is a little more affordable than Toast, considering monthly fees (after Toast’s free trial period) and transaction processing fees. You’re also not locked into a contract like you would be with Toast, so it’s easier to back out if you don’t like the service. 

Pay at Table: Bbot

Bbot is actually a Doordash company with a focus on in-house digital orders. They’re the folks who create a QR code and place it on a table tent that links to a custom site with an interactive menu, tableside ordering and payment. 

This is great for fast-casual restaurants that prioritize customer convenience. Guests can browse the menu at their own pace and pay when they’re ready to go, so you can flip tables faster. 

It’s also easy for guests to add drinks, sides and desserts to their order without flagging down a server, which Bbot claims increases your average ticket sale by 30%. 

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Key features:

• Custom menu design and vanity URL for consistent branding and experience, so customers remember you and not the software. 
• Multi-menu support so you can easily swap menus throughout the day or between locations, like your bar and restaurant. 
• Order flexibility with group ordering for split checks and shared carts, and the ability to pause delivery orders when the kitchen picks up. 

Reviews:

Bbot reviews consistently highlight their excellent customer service as well as the convenience for customers and staff, since it integrates with POS systems and online ordering. 

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“Bbot has made everything from accounting to customer experience better for us and our vendors. Even the in-house dining has been upgraded thanks to Bbot. Our service rep Jeremy has been very responsive and attentive to our business needs.”

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Alternatives:

OpenTable offers a variety of restaurant solutions, including digital ordering. But it’s not their bread and butter like it is for Bbot. 

But if you need a little more power than Bbot provides, OpenTable is a great alternative, and you can bundle other solutions like reservations, table management and online ordering. Create a quick and convenient service from tableside to takeout to increase your orders and sales. 

Reservations: OpenTable

OpenTable is one of the go-to reservation solutions available, and there’s a lot more to it than a fancy calendar. 

It’s smart, and works to actively fill your slow shifts by increasing your visibility. It can also understand your table seatings to maximize reservations without crowding the dining room. 

OpenTable itself has a ton of other software solutions and add-ons available, so you can fold in table management and online ordering to further support your sales goals. 

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Key features:

• Guest reviews build social proof and trust to convince more customers to dine with you. 
• Custom menus showcase your specialties with food photography, and you can even promote and book special experiences. 
• Guest profiles help you track individual preferences and notes to enhance and personalize each service and improve your guest experiences. 

Reviews:

OpenTable has an average 4.3/5 star rating on G2 with several users praising how user-friendly it is, regardless of tech experience.

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“OpenTable has many features that help the restaurants I work with be more successful through increasing visibility and managing our reservations efficiently. 

Some of my favorite features include seamless integration with POS systems, the customer reviews, and marketing opportunities. The customer support and various support resources are very helpful.”

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Alternatives:

If you like to host the occasional karaoke night or drag brunch, Resy offers more support for on-site events and even allows guests to add specialty items and souvenirs to their cart.

Resy also makes marketing easier with custom event pages, table tiers, VIP experience options and special promotions to attract new guests.

Back-of-House Solutions

An organized kitchen and backend is essential to getting hot plates to the table and keeping staff cool during busy dinner rushes. Support your team with these back-of-house solutions.

Inventory Management: Supy

Is there anything worse than having to tell a table, “Sorry, the chicken is off the menu tonight. Would you like a burger instead?” You can’t sell and serve what you don’t have in the back. And messing up inventory has a huge impact on guest experiences and sales. 

Tracking inventory and waste doesn’t have to be difficult — Supy is built to make this specific back-of-house task as painless as possible. 

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Key features:

• Parallel stock counting syncs your count across devices and tracks theoretical vs. actual stock so you can count faster and more accurately. 
• Multiple inventories allow you to track and manage stock for different areas in the same restaurant location to compare waste and profits between bar and kitchen operations.
• Real-time reporting helps you catch low or overstocked items before it’s an issue, and track waste, quantity, variance and menu performance moment-to-moment. 

Reviews:

Supy has a stellar average rating of 4.9 stars with 43 total reviews. It’s well-praised as a tool that helps you reduce food and waste costs, while keeping reports and paperwork organized for management.

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“Supy brings clarity to your decision-making processes through its suite of built-in dashboards which cover a series of departments including supplier, inventory, variance... Rather than waiting for a weekly report on Excel, we now have access to the performance of our restaurants at any time, and with the latest data. There is no middle man.

The team on the ground also feels relieved of the time consuming tasks they used to do, such as weekly stock counts or registering any waste. Supy also provides a clear way to register any "stock event" in order to ensure the data going in is reliable and accurate.”

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Alternatives:

Posist Inventory Management is another solid solution focused on kitchen efficiency above all else. It includes automated alerts when you’re running low on produce or it’s about to expire to reduce your losses.

You can even adjust recipes, daily, weekly and monthly orders, and track recipe consumption. This app has a lot of power, making it great for large, well-established restaurants. However, it’s not so well suited for startups. 

Staff Scheduling: 7Shifts

When your staff is happy, your whole restaurant is happy. Customers enjoy better dining experiences, servers earn more tips and the kitchen runs more smoothly. And if you want a happy staff, you need to keep a fair schedule and pay.

Enter 7Shifts, the scheduling and payroll software specifically designed for restaurants. While scheduling and payroll are the MVPs, they’ve elevated the product to include team management features like training and task management and shift feedback to build team communication. 

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Key features:

• AI automates your schedule and helps you stay compliant with labor laws, while giving you more time to focus on your restaurant.
• Track sales vs. labor in real time to manage your shift schedule and stay on budget. 
• Calculate payroll automatically, including tracking tips and calculating/distributing tip pools.

Reviews:

Beyond scheduling, users seem to appreciate 7Shifts as a communication tool with team messages, time tracking and task management features. It also allows employees to communicate their availability on the go.

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“It makes communication with the team easy, everyone knows what assignments they have as well as many tools to trade, ask for time off, review shifts, etc. 7shifts has massively saved time with scheduling and also is a great form of communication with staff.”

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Alternatives:

If you’re not into the excess team management features and just want great scheduling, consider Sling. It’s a Toast product with drag-and-drop schedule builders, templates and team communication for requests and trades.

It will still help you stick to labor laws and manage your labor budget, but you’ll have to pay extra for features like PTO management and no-shows. And it’s not as comprehensive for new employee needs and feedback like shift reviews. 

Own Your Restaurant’s Management and Performance

The right restaurant management software will make each shift easier, boost staff morale and increase your profits by helping you take more orders, reduce waste and manage labor costs. 

Figure out where your restaurant is underperforming and what your growth goals are. Then, try product demos and decide which software will best support your sales. 

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