Curbside pickup used to be a pandemic stopgap. Now it’s just a feature customers expect—especially the parent with a sleeping kid in the back seat, the contractor who doesn’t want to leave the truck, and the regular grabbing a mobile order on a rainy morning. If you’re a café or coffee shop on Square, you can turn it on today for free, and it plugs into the same order flow you already use.
This guide walks through the exact setup, the order-to-hand-off flow, how to staff it without wrecking your bar, and where a branded app changes the experience. It’s written for an independent operator in Canada or the US on Square.
What curbside pickup on Square actually is
Curbside is a fulfillment type in Square Online—the same category system that separates in-store pickup, delivery, and digital orders. When a customer chooses curbside at checkout, the order lands in your dashboard with a distinct curbside label so staff can treat it differently from a walk-in ticket: the food comes to the car instead of a pickup shelf.
The important cost point: curbside doesn’t add a fee. The Square Online site has a free plan, and curbside is included. You pay only normal payment processing on the order—2.8% + 30¢ in Canada, or 3.3% + 30¢ on the US Free plan—exactly what you’d pay on any other online order. There is no marketplace-style commission, which is the whole reason to keep orders on a channel you control. (For the full picture on that, see how to take online orders without paying commission.)
How to set up curbside pickup, step by step
The whole thing takes about ten minutes in the dashboard.
- Open your fulfillment settings. Sign in to your Square Dashboard, then go to Settings → Account & Settings → Fulfillment methods → Online pickup & delivery. Everything below lives here.
- Enable pickup and add curbside. Turn on pickup, then add curbside as a method. Square requires a business phone number for curbside, because that’s how customers reach you when they arrive.
- Set prep time and pickup hours. Give a realistic prep time so the promised-ready clock matches what actually happens during a rush. You can set curbside hours separately from your store hours—handy if you only want it live during peak windows.
- Set a minimum order (optional). If walking a single drip coffee to the lot isn’t worth a staff trip, set a minimum order amount for curbside orders.
- Designate the spot. Pick one or two parking spaces near your door and mark them with a sign showing a spot number and your phone number.
- Test it live. Place a real curbside order, drive up, and time the hand-off. Confirm the ticket prints, the ready notification fires, and staff know where to look.
Square’s own pickup setup documentation covers the exact menu paths if the interface has shifted since this was written.
How the customer experience flows
Here’s what happens on the customer’s side, start to finish:
- They order from your Square Online site (or your branded app) and choose curbside as the pickup method.
- Square sends email or text notifications as the order is received, prepared, and marked ready.
- When they park, they call or text the business phone number you set—or reply to the ready notification—and tell you where they are.
- A staff member walks the order to the car.
The friction point is step three. A phone call in the middle of a morning rush is exactly the kind of interruption that slows your bar down. This is where the fulfillment method you use matters, and it’s worth being honest about the trade-off.
The parking-lot problem (and how to avoid it)
Curbside works beautifully until three cars show up at once and nobody at the bar knows which order goes to which vehicle. Two things prevent that:
Capture vehicle details. The gold-standard curbside flow attaches the customer’s car to the order—make, model, colour, and a parking spot number—so a barista can glance at the ticket and walk straight to the right vehicle without a phone call. Square’s Orders API supports curbside vehicle details (make/model, plate, spot number), which is how branded ordering apps built on Square can make arrival a single in-app “I’m here” tap instead of a phone call. The stock Square Online checkout leans on the phone-call method, so if congestion is your worry, a branded app is the cleaner experience.
Assign an expo role during peak. Even with perfect data, someone has to watch the lot. On busy shifts, name one person as the runner so curbside hand-offs don’t pull your only barista off the espresso machine. This is the same discipline that keeps online orders from getting lost in the kitchen during a rush.
Curbside vs. in-store pickup vs. delivery
Not every café needs all three. Here’s the honest comparison.
| Fulfillment | Best for | Labor cost | Customer effort | Extra cost to you |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| In-store pickup | High foot traffic, counter shelf space | Lowest (self-serve shelf) | They come inside | Processing only |
| Curbside | Strip-mall/plaza cafés, families, weather | Medium (staff walks out) | They stay in the car | Processing only |
| Delivery | Wider radius, no parking | Highest (courier or your own) | None | Processing + delivery fee |
All three charge 0% commission on your own Square channel; you pay only processing, plus a delivery fee if you dispatch a courier.
For most cafés, curbside sits in a sweet spot: dramatically better than delivery on cost, meaningfully better than counter pickup for anyone who’d rather not park-and-walk. If you have a parking lot, it’s close to free upside.
Staffing curbside without slowing your bar
A few operating rules keep curbside from becoming a drag:
- Set honest prep times. Under-promising ready times is the single biggest cause of a car idling in your lot while a barista scrambles. If mornings run 8 minutes, don’t promise 3.
- Use a minimum order if you’re small. A $2 curbside coffee that pulls staff outside can cost more in labor than it earns.
- Batch the walk-out. If two curbside orders are ready within a minute of each other, run them together.
- Watch no-shows. Curbside orders are prepaid, so a no-show isn’t a financial loss the way an unpaid phone order is—but a made drink going cold on the pass still hurts. The tactics in reducing no-shows on pickup orders apply directly.
Where a branded app changes the math
Stock Square Online curbside is genuinely good and free—start there. But the phone-call arrival step is a real weakness at volume, and the free Square Online site gives you a Square-branded URL, limited loyalty, and no native push notifications to bring people back.
A branded ordering app built on your existing Square POS closes those gaps: customers tap “I’m here” instead of calling, vehicle details ride along with the order automatically, push notifications replace the email-only reminders, and loyalty is built in. That’s the niche Tany fills—a branded iOS and Android app plus web ordering, live in about a day on your Square setup for $99 CAD/month per location with 0% commission and unlimited orders. It’s one way to get a frictionless curbside flow, not the only one; the point stands either way. Turn on Square Online curbside this week, and upgrade the arrival experience when the phone calls start to hurt.
Wrap up
Curbside pickup is one of the lowest-effort wins available to a Square café: free to enable, no commission, and a real convenience for a meaningful slice of your customers. Set realistic prep times, designate a spot with clear signage, assign a runner during rush, and test it live before you promote it. Then put the order link everywhere—your Google Business Profile ordering link, Instagram, and a counter QR code—so people actually find it.