How to set up QR table ordering in two weeks: a checklist

You can set up QR table ordering in about two weeks if you treat it as two jobs: one week for the menu and one for the floor. Send your menu in the first days, check every price, choice and allergen line, set your bill charges and table names, and print QR cards. Then decide who does what, train staff, run a test night and soft launch on a quiet service. With WaiterPilot, most restaurants are live within two weeks of the first call, and setup is free.

Below is a day-by-day plan, what to send on day one, what slows setups down, and how to run the test night. Most of it applies to any QR ordering tool.

What has to be done before guests can order?

Short answer: six things, and only two of them are technical.

The menu is the long pole. A QR ordering chat can only answer from what your menu says, so a missing side or a wrong price becomes a wrong answer to a guest.

The two-week plan, day by day

Short answer: menu first, floor second, guests last. This is an example schedule. Your dates depend mostly on how fast the menu check goes, and setups can be shorter or longer than this.

Setup, menu loading, QR cards and staff training are free. Ask on the first call when your 30 free days start, so the trial covers real service rather than setup.

What do you need to send on day one?

Short answer: your menu and your table list. Everything else follows from them.

1. The menu, as a PDF or clear photos of every page, with prices. We load it for you; a person does that, not the product, and you check it before going live.
2. The choices each dish needs, and which ones are required. Required choices (size, side, flavour) must be picked before an order can be confirmed.
3. Allergen information your kitchen has confirmed. Only that. When the menu doesn’t say, the chat tells the guest to ask staff, which is the safe default.
4. Arabic dish names, if you have them. The menu editor shows how much of your menu has Arabic text; anything without it shows to Arabic guests in English.
5. Your table names as your staff say them: T1, Terrace 4, Bar 2.
6. Dish photos, if you have them.

What should you check in the loaded menu?

Short answer: everything the chat could repeat to a guest.

• Every dish name and price, against the printed menu.
• Every required choice: a steak that needs a cooking level, a meal that needs a side.
• Extras and their prices.
• Descriptions that answer the common questions: spicy, vegetarian, what comes with it.
• Allergens, only where your kitchen has confirmed them. Blank is better than a guess.
• Dishes you don’t serve every day, so you know which to mark sold out before service.

Then the settings. Bill charges (tax and any service charge or gratuity) are set by you and shown on the guest’s live bill. The Arabic dialect sets the Arabic the chat uses (Jordanian, Lebanese, Egyptian, Gulf, Saudi or Modern Standard Arabic); guests who write in other languages are still answered in theirs. The waiter’s name and house style shape tone only and never change your menu, prices or what a guest can order. You can hide prices from guests, and switch on optional calls for shisha coals and valet, each with its own screen. Our onboarding checklist has the full list, with screenshots.

What slows a setup down?

Short answer: decisions, not software.

How do you run the test night?

Short answer: an hour with your own staff as guests, trying every table and every exception once.

1. Scan every QR card and check it opens the right table.
2. Order a dish with a required choice and a note, and tap Confirm.
3. Confirm it on the main board and check the kitchen screen shows the dish, the choice and the note, without prices.
4. Mark it Served and check the guest’s phone follows.
5. Try the exceptions: reject a first order; cancel one from the guest phone while it’s awaiting staff; mark a dish Out of stock in the kitchen and check it leaves the bill; mark a dish sold out from the owner’s phone and ask the chat for it.
6. Call a waiter and ask for the check. Check both reach the floor screen and that the check request shows cash or card.
7. Open the live bill and check your tax and service charge.
8. Close the table and compare what you rang into the till with the live bill.

Write down every surprise. That’s day 12’s list.

Should you soft launch on a few tables first?

Short answer: yes, on a quiet service, with the printed menu still on the table.

Not every guest will want to order from a phone. In the NRA’s 2024 survey, 48% of full-service diners said they would order with a QR code, ranging from 69% of Millennials to 21% of Boomers (NRA, 2024). So QR ordering runs alongside your printed menu, and servers still take orders from guests who prefer it. A soft launch on a Tuesday lunch, or on one section, lets staff learn the board without a full room watching.

What if you choose a different QR ordering system?

Short answer: the plan is the same, plus whatever the tool needs from your POS.

POS-built QR ordering adds its own setup steps. Toast tells restaurants to “designate an auto-firing device in the restaurant” so Mobile Order & Pay orders reach the kitchen, and to set up tables and QR signs in Toast Web (Toast support, as published on 15 Oct 2026). Square lists QR code ordering on its Plus ($49 a month per location) and Premium ($149) restaurant plans, not on Free (Square pricing, as published on 15 Oct 2026). If you already run one of them, their own QR ordering may be the simpler setup. Add printer routing, payment and POS menu sync to the plan above.

WaiterPilot skips those steps because it has no POS or printer connection and takes no payment: staff work from its screens on phones or tablets you already have, and payment happens with your staff. The trade-off is that someone enters each order in your till. Our guide to reconciling QR orders with your till each night works out what that costs.

What does setup cost with WaiterPilot?

Nothing. Setup, menu loading, QR cards and staff training are free, there’s no hardware to buy, and the first 30 days are free. Then it’s $200 per location per month, or $2,000 per location per year, with 0% commission and no contract. Details are on the pricing page.

What to do next

Start the menu check now, whatever tool you choose: it’s the slowest step and it improves your printed menu too. Then read how to train staff on a new ordering board for day 10, and try a sample order to see what your team will learn.