Frequently asked questions

If yours is not here, write to us — we answer them ourselves.

Getting started

An afternoon. You type your menu in or upload the PDF you already print, pick a template, and print the QR codes. There is no installer to book and no hardware to wait for.

No. Anywhere with a menu works the same way. Cafes and bars run the screens a full kitchen runs; a bakery or a truck usually takes the Menu plan with one code at the counter.

No. Guests use their own phones. The kitchen display opens in a browser on any tablet or TV you already have.

No. The code on the table opens a web page in the phone camera. Nothing to install, nothing to sign into.

Yes, and there is nothing to wait for. All of it runs in your phone’s browser today — same account, same screens as the laptop — and the iPhone and Android apps are in review now. Your team signs in by scanning a code, so a new hire is working without an email address or a password.

Only if you want to. Upload the PDF you already print and let it read itself, or send it to us on the Service plan and we type it in for you.

No. Build your entire menu, choose your design and preview it for free. Payment happens at the moment you publish it for guests.

Yes. If you can write your menu on paper, you can build it here — you type a dish, a price and a photo, and pick a look from the templates. Nothing to install, nothing to configure. If you get stuck at any point, write to us and we will do that part for you.

No. It lives at yourname.chitrail.com — you choose the name — and it carries your logo, your colours and your words. Guests never see ours.

Running the night

No. Guests order from the table and pay you the way they always have. The order reaches the kitchen with the table number on it, and the money stays at your register.

No. Your register keeps ringing up the same way and your staff learn nothing new to use it. What changes is the walk to the table and the note in the waiter’s pocket.

Yes. A waiter writes the order on the panel or on their own phone, off the same menu, and it lands on the same board and the same kitchen screen as one a guest sent. Staff can also put an order through outside your opening hours, which a guest cannot. Most rooms end up running both.

An order carries the code of the table it came from. You can hold every order for staff approval, cap how many one table sends a minute, and take orders only inside your opening hours.

No. The kitchen display keeps what it already has and syncs the moment the connection returns. If an order cannot be sent, the guest is told plainly rather than shown a false confirmation.

A shift, and most of that is watching. You print a code and a new hire scans it, taps once and is on the floor — no email address, no password, and the phone stays signed in. They work on their own phone, they see orders, tables and bookings and nothing else, and at the register they carry on doing exactly what they do now.

Every order is stamped with the waiter who sent it and the manager who accepted it. The staff page ranks the team by orders taken, what those tables spent and how long guests waited, over any stretch you pick. Everyone is measured the same way, so a review is a number you can both look at.

It calls one over. On the Service plan a guest can ask for a waiter or for the check with one tap, and it lands on the same screen an order does — with the clock running, so nobody sits there with a hand in the air.

Tell us and we build it. There is a screen in the panel where you write what you need in your own words; small things go out in days, bigger ones in a few weeks, and yours sits there with where it got to. It costs nothing extra, and when it ships everyone gets it.

A price change or a sold-out mark reaches the table the second you make it. Bigger edits stay a draft until you publish, so guests never read a half-finished menu.

No. The design tool prints the same menu on paper, in the same look guests see on their phones.

That stops the day you publish. A price change is one tap and the next guest to scan sees it. Print the paper version when the menu really changes — a new season, a new dish — instead of every time a supplier puts the price of beef up.

Plans and billing

Yes, on Service. You keep one menu and one design across every location, and each one sets its own prices, hours, tables and staff. The numbers come per location and side by side. Each location after the first is $9.99 a month on yearly, $19.99 month to month.

Menu publishes your menu with QR codes for every table. Service adds table ordering, the kitchen display, the floor map, the numbers, staff sign-in, more than one location, same-day support, and we will type your first menu in for you.

No. You pay one flat price a month or a year, and what a guest spends at your register stays there.

Because we sell you one thing. Most systems for this cost $50 to $150 a month for one place, and the money is in what comes with them: their tablets, their card reader taking a cut of every payment, a person to come and set it up. We sell none of that. You use the tablets you own, your register keeps the money, and you set it up yourself in an afternoon.

Your plan renews on its own, monthly or yearly, at the price you signed up for. The renewal date sits in the panel next to your card, and you can cancel there in two clicks.

No. Cancel whenever you like. Everything you built stays in your account, and your menu stays up until the end of the period you already paid for.

It is a discount you can walk away from. Menu is $119.88 a year against $239.88 paid monthly; Service is $479.88 against $839.88. Past about six months yearly is cheaper, and cancelling still leaves your menu up to the end of the period.

No. Your menu and your orders keep working while you update the card, and the panel tells you what happened. Nothing goes dark in the middle of service.

A person, every time — one of the people who built it, answering from our own inbox. Menu gets an answer within a business day, Service the same day. Ask as often as you like; the same person stays with you through the thread.

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