How to Choose the Best Sandwich Shop and Deli POS System

Whether you run a busy deli counter on main street or sell soup and subs by the sea shore, when you’re looking to upgrade your existing cash register or point of sale, you need help choosing the best POS system your sandwich shop. This guide will explain the major improvements in sandwich shop point of sale systems and what features are most important to help make your deli or lunch counter more successful and easier to run.

Cured meats and cheese

Charcuterie, the art of aged and dried meat was once practiced strictly out of necessity. Preserving meats long term, without refrigeration was a matter of life and death in ancient times. Along with cured meats, they were naturally paired with another aged, and densely nutritious food, cheese. Together, aged meat and cheese could be carried and added to foods which were quite perishable, bread and fresh vegetables. These ingredients appeared in many configurations such as salads, meat and cheese boards but it was not until they were stacked together and eaten in layers that we met the modern sandwich.

Brief history of sandwiches

Although humans have been wrapping meat and herbs in flatbread for thousands of years before they were called sandwiches, the history of the sandwich officially starts with the Earl of Sandwich and his late-night gambling binges. Refusing to get up from the table to eat, he demanded a meal he could hold in one hand and his playing cards in the other. Perhaps he was inspired by his cards, ordering card-shaped bread and meat stacked together like a deck. This innovation and the association with the English nobility changed the perception of cold meat on bread being a low form cuisine to something more socially acceptable.

Types of sandwich shops

The cafe concept developed from the coffeehouses in Europe, where light Mediterranean fare such as tomato and mozzarella on a toasted baguette was a welcome late-morning snack, it is easy to see how cafe menus expanded in the 20th century to offer more breakfast sandwich varieties. On the other hand, the luncheonette or lunch counter restaurant is a more like a diner, oriented toward meals of a wider range, such as hot and cold sandwiches, burgers and soups. Very casual establishments, sometimes built inside drugstores or a deli, they offer service primarily from a long bar.

The deli concept is rooted in the broad selection of high-quality meats and cheeses offered out of a cold case. When busy customers found it convenient to order sandwiches on site rather than taking the ingredients home, the deli became a place to get a sandwich you can build with toppings you choose yourself. With the introduction of a long roll as the base, the hoagie, grinder, blimpy or submarine sandwich became a real "hero."

Choosing a sandwich shop point of sale system

It is important to choose the best sub-shop POS system for your foodservice business. Your restaurant point of sale can either be a reliable tool that helps you manage the deli efficiently, and grow your success, or it can be an expensive hassle.

If you researched new POS systems in the last few years, you need to look again. Even in the last year, the quality, affordability and value-packed feature-set of modern point of sale systems have gone through the roof.

Using an iPad as a point of sale device has changed the entire dynamic when it comes to cash registers for small businesses. You're no longer locked into a long term contract and forced to use outdated and expensive proprietary equipment. Just download the best iPad POS app from the Apple app store. Connect to a standard cash drawer and compatible networked printers - and you're in business within minutes!

The great thing is iPad POS systems are based on the quality design and network reliability of an iPad tablet. Famously easy to use and a reputation for always working, iPads are widely available both new and used so the reliability to affordability ratio can not be beat.

Tools to help restaurants

The best POS system for deli and sub sandwich shops isn't just capable and feature-rich, it helps you address the concerns you have about running your luncheonette or cafe. The choice of restaurant POS is one that can provide you with the means to do more with your limited time while finding you ways to save money.

Food control

Know What Sells

The best POS system for deli and sub sandwich shops isn't just capable and feature-rich, it helps you address the concerns you have about running your luncheonette or cafe. The choice of restaurant POS is one that can provide you with the means to do more with your limited time while finding you ways to save money.

Know What It Costs

You understand that controlling food cost is important. Menu engineering is the process of designing menu items so that the perceived value of the menu item outweighs its raw materials cost. This is done through recipe costing. When you know the cost of your ingredients, and the amount that goes into each menu item, the best soup and sub shop point of sale system will give you an instant food cost calculation! Make adjustments to portion sizes or ingredients to hit your targets!

View Recipes

Your staff should be trained to use proper ingredient portions. However, with a deli POS system that tracks ingredients, you don't have to go from memory. Just tap the item to find the recipe and item description. Imagine when even brand new staff members know exactly how a sandwich is built, down to the exact ounce!

Enforce Portioning

When your ingredients are tracked inside your lunch counter POS system, you'll be able to quickly perform ingredient audits. If staff are over-portioning when making sandwiches, you can't make the expected margin you've calculated, and if the ingredients are expensive, it's possible you're losing money every time that employee makes a sandwich!

Limit Waste

When you track inventory using your delicatessen POS system you can tell if you're suffering from "shrink," (otherwise known as employee theft) or if something is causing a high amount of food waste. One of the most profound causes of restaurant food waste is spoilage from over-buying produce. If you are tracking your sales with ingredient inventory correctly, you should have a very good idea about how much of the raw ingredients you're using each day. Take control of portions and stop over-buying produce and you'll see a nice lift in per-sandwich profits!

Keep the line moving

Fast payment methods

When it's busy, you need fast and reliable payment. We've all seen people at the back of the line peel off because they have limited time for lunch breaks. Payments should be the easiest part of running a sandwich bar!

The best deli and sandwich-shop credit card processing system is fast, using the latest technology to gain payment approval over the internet. Also, the ability to use all kinds of payment including cash, check, EMV (chip cards), swipe and new payment methods that are becoming popular such as contactless (NFC) payment cards and mobile payment options that no longer use a card at all. Instead, they use your customer's cell phone to quickly send payment data. More and more customers are looking for businesses that take Apple Pay and Android Pay services.

Bundles and Combos

Another way to speed up the line is to offer bundles and combos that are just one button away from being ordered. With the ability to bundle multiple items together you can encourage your regular customers to speed up the ordering process by choosing "combo number 8". This also seems to have a psychological effect; by simplifying choices, customers feel less indecisive. Easy ordering improves the guest experience by reducing stress and helps them get back to work with more time to eat.

No Losing Orders, Freezing, Bugs or Rebooting

No, they won't mention this when you talk to the sales people but beware of bugs. Talk to other restaurant business owners, and they'll tell you about fatal errors that ground their business to a halt because of messy programming and shoddy hardware. Poor quality hardware and software cost your business money. That's why the most reliable tablet based POS system runs on iPad and has a reputation for being free of major errors. Losing an order is no joke. It causes your customers to be frustrated, backs up the line and costs you money!

Offline Payments

When the internet goes down, many POS systems put you out of business. Consider the money lost and the embarrassment to customers when you have to decline their card. The lunch counter POS with the best offline payment mode allows your customers to keep using their preferred payment method without creating a "situation." Payment information is securely stored, and when internet connectivity is restored, they run silently in the background - putting that well-deserved money into your account.

Intuitive Interface

Let's face it, many of the employees in the foodservice industry are young people, and it may be their first real job. If there's one thing today's youth are comfortable using, it's their phone. The best iPad POS system for delicatessens and soup shops features an incredibly easy to use touch-based interface that works just like the phones and tablets they grew up with. Training is a breeze because the buttons work as expected. None of the archaic quirks found in legacy POS systems.

Accurate Orders Without Hunting

When choosing the easiest to use tablet ePOS system, the layout of your should make it easy to find what your staff needs to ring in orders accurately. With forced modifiers, cashiers are required to choose the right options to place an order, keeping them from getting lost. Only the available toppings are shown, and it's just one more tap to use modifier options. So that toasted ham and swiss on multigrain with pickles and light mayo are just a few quick taps away from payment!

Orders Sent Directly to the Kitchen

With the best point of sale system for luncheonettes and soup and sandwich shops, you can take orders at the counter, at the drive-through, over the phone or tableside and have the orders print to the kitchen or sent to a dedicated kitchen display. This helps speed up order-making and eliminates the need for hand written tickets. There's also no longer a need for cashiers and servers to run back and forth between the kitchen and the register. Talk about efficient!

Management tools

Drawer Management

With all the cash handling going on in your successful sub shop, accurate tracking of cash is incredibly important. Choose a POS system with fully featured cash drawer management functions that allow you to perform periodic audits, track transactions by user, log all pay-ins and pay-outs and create a complete end of shift and end of day report. View all transactions for accuracy and accountability. Staff won't risk doing anything funny with your money if they know they are being watched. The POS with the best management and accountability tools helps you keep track of the drawer and sales even when you're not on site, by showing a running total of your sales and transactions by logging into a secure management portal that you can access anywhere you have an internet connection.

System Permissions

The most secure iPad POS system for a sandwich counter or deli has user level permissions that can be set so that each role in the restaurant has the right level of access. Limiting certain functions to required users only, such as bank drops, discounts, closing a drawer and editing an order that has already been sent to the kitchen, helps ensure staff accountability and protects you from losses.

Labor Management

The ability to track labor against sales is an important iPad POS app feature for your Sandwich restaurant. Labor is one of the most expensive costs related to food service, so it's important not to have excess staff on duty. The best labor management app features include calculating labor cost based on employee wage and hours in real time and ensuring that time-punches are valid but using two step security that includes a secret PIN and an image from the camera at the time of the punch.

Accounting / Reports

When your accountant needs to crunch the numbers, the best POS for the deli, soup and sub shop is the one that makes it easy to export reports and data into your preferred accounting software, such as Excel or Quickbooks. Detailed reports provide you with information on sales, tips, and taxes and are all permanently saved in the cloud, giving you access today's numbers as well as historical data, right at your fingertips.

Configuring Taxes

Tax law can be complicated, but your POS system should make it easy to add taxes and apply the correct percent, to the right products on the menu, based on service or item. Add as many taxes as you need to and name them so you can always see how your tax payments breakdown by the individual taxes you are subject to.

Marketing

Generating new business and keeping existing customers engaged is a big part of your job as a lunch restaurant manager. When you participate in marketing, it's often with the use of specials and promotional pricing. You need a POS that makes it easy to change menus and pricing. Soup of the day? Thanksgiving turkey sandwich? No problem. Just add the promotional items, deactivate and reactivate them on the fly!

Promotional pricing can be added to menu items to discount during certain days or times of the day, and set to run in the background automatically! Moreover, gift cards are a great way to market your deli, by turning your food into a gift you can offer local businesses a discount package on gift cards that they can use as bonuses for their hungry workers.

The easiest to use sandwich shop point of sale system for iPad supports your promotional activity by giving you easy to use tools to help entice customers with menu items, pricing, and gift cards

Affordability / Low Fees

As a restaurant business owner, you understand how important it is to keep your costs under control. The most affordable POS system for sub shops and deli restaurants will have a reasonable flat monthly rate and low payment processing fees. With a flat per-terminal rate that includes service, support, and additional features, you know exactly what the costs are, so there are no surprises on your bill.

You have enough things that cost you money, the most affordable sandwich shop POS system helps you make money and saves you time but is also a low-cost solution that is feature rich. Other iPad based credit card processing systems are expensive. The most affordable point of sale for delis keeps credit card processing charges low by negotiating the best rates for you, and not charging additional gateway fees!

POS Company’s Reputation for Quality and Service

When choosing the best lunch counter point of sale, take into account the reputation for service and reliability of the POS company you opt to do business with. When the chips are down, who's going to pick up the support line? A robotic voice? Someone from a place you've never heard of? The iPad POS solution with the best support answers the phone with US-based technical and customer support. When you pick up the phone or use live chat, a real person who cares about helping you is ready to do everything they can to make sure you're successful. With unlimited support and training, you and your staff never have to worry about unanswered questions or having to pay additional fees for staff training.

The POS company with the best reputation for service and quality of support is with you the whole way, making sure that you're up and running in no time, and if there are any hiccups along the way, they listen to your problem and are happy to help.

When you choose the best POS system for your deli or sandwich shop, it will be an invaluable tool to help you sustain and grow your food service business. The most reliable and easy to use iPad point of sale solution saves you time, money and gives you the confidence to make critical business decisions, using sales and analytic data.