Likelihood to Recommend Aldelo POS is great for small to midsize single location restaurants. Unless you go with the cloud model you're limited to that. Aldelo is great for limited menus and places that do not track inventory in their POS. Once you go with a very large menu, be prepared to spend a lot of time getting it entered and working properly! Multiple stations are no problem and it runs well on older hardware too. Overall, a pretty solid system!
Read full review For a small company with little inventory, Lavu is a great simple POS system. For a larger company or a company where items are always changing, I would not recommend Lavu as more transactions increases room for error and ultimately takes away the time one doesn't have to figure out how to reconcile something. Customer service is not always able to fix the problem right away and can take months getting back to you on the reasoning behind a discrepancy in reports.
Read full review Pros Reports: Live up to the minute data is something that any restaurant manager/owner wants. Aldelo does this well. Backend store setup (for techs like me) is very easy once you know the system. Setting up the peripherals, station-specific settings and the like - all very easy and intuitive Support: calling into support has always been a great experience, and perhaps the biggest sell point. I've even received help with expired support contracts. Their team is always at the ready to login or just offer the right advice driven solutions for the current support needs. Great job here! Read full review The Lavu system is incredibly easy to use in both front and back of house operations. The format of both sides is very intuitive. Lavu makes it very easy to add real life application to teaching inventory control, schedule control, etc. The fact that it is cloud based makes life much easier. I can make changes on the fly and they update very quickly. Read full review Cons Credit cards: we've all seen it with the EV revolution. Once that happened, using whatever merchant/payment processor went out the window. Aldelo - to my knowledge - only integrates directly with 4 processors. They need to add a lot more than that IMHO! Menu setup/rollout: this can test even the most talented veterans. Depending on the menu and the modifiers - this can go easy or be an outright nightmare to setup. A more intuitive process is direly needed here. Inventory: Well, none of my clients use it. Make it a value addon? Just get rid of it and leave to another solution? Inventory is a job I and of itself. Most restaurants I've dealt with are way too busy and shorthanded to do this properly anyway. Read full review Split check credit card transactions, seem to have issues with some of the checks not closing out properly or being charged correctly Servers being allowed to run server summary even though they have unpaid checks (not supposed to happen) Have had the system go out on a weekend and took 20 plus minutes to get back online Calling the help desk on the weekend is a joke, takes 45 to 90 minutes to get help Read full review Alternatives Considered From the list above
Aloha POS would be the closest to a restaurant POS, it's actually a very good one. As with any software, it does the same basic things, and in all likeliness, this has improved as a platform. It's been a while since I used it, so I don't want to provide out of date info. I listed Counterpoint because I currently manage a busy retail store that uses CP and they are opening a second location that will add bar and restaurant-style services to the CP system. That said, CP is retail first but looks like it will handle the restaurant/bar side of things nicely. Hard to recommend this solution for anyone other than high (HIGH!) end retailers as the upfront and overtime costs can be big. I wouldn't recommend for restaurants.
Read full review Square has a simpler interface but lower quality reporting for accountants.
Read full review Return on Investment Never been a loss to invest in Aldelo. It pays for itself very fast (software licensing). If you do the hardware right it can get expensive and take a little longer to see the ROI. All in one touchscreens are pricey, especially for the better brands. The peripherals are specific too: thermal printers, specialized impact printers for the kitchen, etc. They all add up quickly. The ability to monitor sales and adjust menus accordingly has to be priceless to an owner. Read full review LAVU has fit perfectly into both the business and teaching usage areas for me. I feel I got an extra return on investment. Read full review ScreenShots