TouchBistro Review 2024: Features, Pros & Cons

TouchBistro POS is one of the best iPad POS systems. It powers over 29,000 restaurants in more than 100 countries. The specific services TouchBistro POS offers to help you deliver on your promise include:

• Table management
• Reservation management
• Menu management
• Order management
• Payment processing
• Customer management
• Staff management
• Inventory management
• Reporting and analytics
• Loyalty management
• Gift cards

Pros

TouchBistro packs restaurant-specific features, so the POS stays useful for the entire dining process, from floor arrangements to menus, orders, payments and gift cards so that loved ones can dine at your restaurant. TouchBistro reviews reveal that it is also easy to navigate. Also, not only can you customize its features to suit your restaurant’s style, but this POS also integrates smoothly with third-party apps.

Cons

While we love that TouchBistro comes with specific features for restaurants, it only works on Apple devices. Also, paying for each feature you need tends to increase the cost of the POS since the feature costs add up quickly. Also, there is no free version or trial opportunity with TouchBistro. So, you’ll need to get into a contract before examining whether its processes work for your restaurant.

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Clover

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$14.95 per month (plus hardware)

Free trial

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Key features

Versatile POS, invoicing, employee management

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$0

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POS built specifically for restaurants, payroll, online ordering, team and inventory management

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TouchBistro provides the software and hardware restaurants need for processing payments and other activities that diners won’t see. Its built-in tools will help you determine and promote profitable menu items and speed up table turnover. You will also deliver better service by sitting guests faster, minimizing order errors and processing payments quickly. TouchBistro will also help you manage staff and items and customize your relationship with diners.

TouchBistro POS offers several features to help you run your restaurant smoothly and provide diners with a remarkable experience. Its primary functions are:

Table and Reservation Management

TouchBistro POS makes it easy to design a floor plan, assign staff to sections and view seat availability. You can also associate tables with specific reservations and block out hours and dates. Then, the TouchBistro reservation feature allows you to take reservations and give expected guests the kind of treatment they deserve. You’ll know who’s coming to your restaurant and even note their allergies, dining preferences and special occasions from their customized notes.

With TouchBistro POS, you can keep monitor table statuses for days, weeks, even months. That way, you can prepare for guests. Also, there’s a two-way short message service (SMS) and email communication feature, reminding guests of upcoming reservations and parking instructions and allowing them to notify you of plan changes. However, to process cancellation fees, you’ll need a Stripe account.

Menu Management

TouchBistro’s customizable menu management system will help you organize your menu, schedule specials, sell premium items and manage takeout orders. You can customize your menus with colors to remind your staff to upsell specific items or highlight promotions. The detailed menu descriptions and photos will help your restaurant servers make tailored recommendations and answer diner questions. To streamline operations and minimize confusion even for understaffed restaurants, TouchBistro shows you dine-in orders and takeout orders separately.

You can integrate your menus with your restaurant’s kitchen hardware to route orders to specific back-of-the-house stations by item or category. TouchBistro also allows you to add nonfood items, including packaged foods and branded merchandise, to your menu.

Order Management

TouchBistro’s table ordering, customer-facing display (CFD) and kitchen display systems (KDS) combine to help you serve guests quicker. Customers can review orders on the CFD and you can advertise, too. You can also accept orders for pickup or delivery and set customer expectations on wait times, closures, delivery boundaries and fees, acceptable payments and promotions through your website, Google My Business profile or social media channels—without commission fees.

TouchBistro POS also enables smooth integration with DoorDash at a flat rate per order. To improve order accuracy and increase the efficiency of timing meals and courses, TouchBistro’s KDS consolidates order viewing and signals new orders by a loud chime. Servers can further prioritize tickets with color codes and use the restaurant POS’ drag and swipe controls to update tickets, enhancing communication between front-of-the-house staff and back-of-the-house staff.

Payment Processing

Powered by Chase, TouchBistro Payments give you hardware and software to enable guests to pay in their preferred manner. TouchBistro POS allows you to process debit and credit cards by swiping, dipping or tapping. It also accepts digital payments from Google Pay, Apple Pay and Samsung Pay and customers can make contactless payments right at their tables.

With or without the internet, TouchBistro POS allows you to continue taking payments, with offline payments processed once the internet returns. If you bank with Chase, expect fund deposits by the next business day. For other banks, it takes one to four business days. But remember that TouchBistro’s payment processing feature is only available for United States restaurants.

Customer Management

TouchBistro’s marketing platform integrates smoothly with the POS to automate marketing campaigns that help you engage with customers better. The POS collects diners’ phone numbers, email addresses and birthdays when they sign up for a Customer Web App (CWA) account, which allows them to receive messages, leave feedback, view promotions and more. You can send customized emails and targeted advertisements to enhance customer relationships and track promotion redemptions and click-through rates to note what works.

TouchBistro POS also has a loyalty feature to help you turn first-time guests into regulars and regular diners into promoters. Restaurants can create rewarding experiences, such as awarding loyalty points according to the amount guests spend or the items they purchase. It also doubles as a customer relationship management (CRM) platform, capturing details, such as dining history, food preferences and anniversaries so that you can engage with diners how they want.

Inventory Management

TouchBistro POS will help you manage inventory down to each dish’s specific ingredients. Add items manually or use a barcode scanner. TouchBistro alerts you when an item runs low so you can withdraw it from the menu and know when to reorder supplies. You can export stock level reports as comma-separated values (CSV) files to generate purchase orders.

However, to access advanced inventory and vendor management features, including beverage program management, stock depletion forecasting and direct ordering from vendors, you’ll need to integrate with vendor and inventory management providers, such as Restaurant 365, MarginEdge, Optimum Control and Craftable.

TouchBistro knows that each restaurant is unique, so it offers customizable solutions with flexible pricing options. That way, you can personalize your restaurant’s management system. Reach out to TouchBistro’s sales team to determine which TouchBistro products you’ll need and how much to pay.

TouchBistro POS software starts at $69 per month, including menu management, floor plan and table management, tableside ordering, staff management, reporting and analytics and integration with other software platforms.
Monthly costs for customer engagement products include:

• Marketing: $99
• Reservation: $229
• Online ordering: $50
• Loyalty program: $99
• Gift cards: $25

While you won’t get a free trial, TouchBistro offers a free live demo for every feature it provides.

Setting up TouchBistro POS is easy and fast but remember that its features only work on iPads. You can buy hardware such as printers, routers and barcode scanners from TouchBistro or set up the software on existing hardware, following simple instructions. For any feature or tool you need to set up, TouchBistro offers live demos and workshops, tutorials and an opportunity to speak with an onboarding manager. TouchBistro will also help you switch from another provider.

TouchBistro POS is easy to use, especially since there are several guides on how to set it up and use it. You can even book a live demo on setting up or using any of its features. TouchBistro’s iOS-based interface is easy for anyone who can navigate an iPhone. Plus, you can customize it to suit your restaurant needs.

TouchBistro only stores cardholders’ names and the last four digits of their cards to aid processing, so their card details are secure. TouchBistro also takes administrative, technical and physical measures to safeguard your personal information against unauthorized access. It uses secure sockets layer (SSL) encryption to protect your information during internet transmission. TouchBistro also investigates reported vulnerabilities and has an expert team monitoring its servers.

Also, it won’t sell your information to a third party. Even team members only get access to sections you assign them.

TouchBistro is available around the clock. You can reach a specialist via phone or chat and email at any time, even on holidays. TouchBistro POS also has a searchable knowledge base with helpful resources, such as articles, videos, newsletters and live workshops. The POS also provides thorough training for users and its specialists can get remote access to your POS, allowing them to diagnose issues.

More benefits of using TouchBistro include the following features.

Integrations

TouchBistro integrates nicely with various best-in-class software to ensure your restaurant provides an impeccable experience for diners without stress. Below are a few integrations you can get from TouchBistro POS:

• Payment processing: Chase, Square, Worldpay and Barclaycard so you can accept different types of payments
• Accounting: Xero, QuickBooks, Restaurant 365 and MarginEdge for simplifying bookkeeping and financial management
• Inventory management: Restaurant365, MarginEdge, MarketMan, Optimum Control and Craftable for managing supply levels, vendor relationships and making quick purchases
• Business insights and analytics: MarginEdge and Avero for detailed sales forecasts, food cost management and employee performance so that you can reach the right business decisions
• Staff scheduling and payroll: Push Operations and 7 Shifts to simplify staff scheduling, team communication and payroll

Reporting and Analytics

TouchBistro integrates with apps, such as MarginEdge and Avero, to give you unprecedented access to the insights you need to make the best decisions for your business. Comprehensive insights into diner behavior will help you know which menu items and promotions to include during specific periods. Also, reports on staff performance will inform scheduling, seasonal hiring and training decisions.

TouchBistro provides restaurants with more than 50 report types. You can filter reports by date, sales, payment type or menu category and schedule them to be sent to the relevant teams at specific periods. Since TouchBistro is cloud-based, you can access the reports from anywhere.

Staff Management

TouchBistro’s in-built staff management tool and integration with staff scheduling and payroll apps will help you simplify shift management to optimize labor costs. Its clock-in/clock-out function allows you to track employee hours and calculate their earnings and taxes. You will also access real-time data on overtime hours and staff sales performance. You can assign team members individual accounts and adjust their permissions according to their roles.

Gift Cards

TouchBistro allows restaurants to sell digital and physical gift cards. You can customize gift cards with several designs for birthdays and holidays. Customers can purchase gift cards from the customer web app or pick them up from your restaurant. However, you’ll need to activate the TouchBistro card-not-present payments so that they can purchase digital gift cards for their apps.

	TouchBistro	Toast	Lavu	Square
Free Version	X	✓	X	✓
Monthly Starting Price	$69	$69	$59	2.6% plus 10 cents per transaction
Hardware Included	✓	✓	✓	X
Restaurant-specific Features	✓	✓	✓	✓
Built-in Payment Processing	✓	✓	✓	✓
Software Integrations	✓	✓	✓	✓
Inventory Management	✓	✓	✓	✓
Learn More	On TouchBistro’s Website	Via partner site	—	Via partner site
Read Reviews	—	Toast POS Review	Lavu POS Review	Square POS Review

See More See Less

TouchBistro POS vs. Toast POS

Toast is an iPad POS. Similar to TouchBistro, it offers the features that restaurants’ needs. TouchBistro and Toast POS share the same starting price, but you can determine quickly how much you’d pay for Toast.

Instead of the à la carte option that TouchBistro offers, Toast offers different packages to choose from as your business scales. Also, it provides a free version, whereas TouchBistro won’t allow you to test its features before buying.

TouchBistro POS vs. Lavu POS

Lavu iPad POS competes on the same level as TouchBistro, offering similar features. Also, you won’t get a free version or free trial from any of them. However, where TouchBistro allows you to customize your package, Lavu offers restaurants different pricing tiers. Its monthly starting price is $59, whereas TouchBistro starts at $69.

TouchBistro POS vs. Square POS

Square and TouchBistro offer similar features, from table management to inventory management and reporting. Still, Square POS is a better fit if you can only afford a free version or prefer a POS with various pricing tiers. Also, it is compatible with iOS and Android, whereas TouchBistro only works on iPads. However, in terms of cost, it adds up quickly with higher transaction volumes. That’s because you need to pay a commission for every transaction.

Featured Partners

Advertisement

1

Clover

Price starts at

$14.95 per month (plus hardware)

Free trial

90 days

Key features

Versatile POS, invoicing, employee management

1

Clover

Learn More

On Clover's Website

2

Toast

Price starts at

$0

Free Trial

No

Key Features

POS built specifically for restaurants, payroll, online ordering, team and inventory management

2

Toast

Learn More

On Toast's Website

3

KORONA POS

Price starts at

$59/mo

Free trial

Unlimited

Key features

Inventory management, custom reporting, advanced cashier functionality, accounting integrations

3

KORONA POS

Learn More

On Korona's Website

TouchBistro POS is best for restaurants that require features that can help them streamline the peculiar operations of a restaurant. Its à la carte approach also makes it a suitable option for restaurateurs who would love to customize their POS and pay for only what they need. However, if you want an Android-based platform, a free POS provider or want first to try out the features of a POS system you’re considering, check out its alternatives.