Operations 10 min read
What's a Good COGS Percentage for a Coffee Shop?
The benchmark, the formula, a worked cost-per-cup breakdown, and the five levers that move COGS before you touch your menu prices.
Tag
Posts tagged “cafe operations”
83 posts
Apps & Technology 9 min read
Does Apple Take 30% of Your Restaurant App Orders?
The 30% App Store cut does not apply to food orders. Here is what Apple and Google actually charge a café app, and what you really pay instead.
Operations 10 min read
Do You Charge GST/HST on Café Online Orders in Canada?
The channel doesn't change the tax. A plain-language guide to GST/HST on café online orders, the Ontario point-of-sale rebate, and Square's tax settings.
Square How-Tos 9 min read
Time-Based Menus on Square: Cut Breakfast Off at 11
Stop taking breakfast orders at 11:04. How to schedule menus by time of day in Square, plus the prep-time trap that breaks most setups.
Mobile Apps 8 min read
Why Apple and Google Reject Restaurant Apps (and How to Pass)
The six review rules that reject café and restaurant apps most often, quoted from Apple's and Google's own guidelines, with the fix for each.
Square How-To 9 min read
Square Payment Links for Cafés: When to Use One (and When Not)
A no-website way to take a payment on Square: what payment links cost, what they can and can't do, and the six café jobs they actually fit.
Square How-Tos 11 min read
Café Labour Cost Percentage: Benchmarks and Square Shifts Setup
The closest real benchmark, the definitional trap that makes most cafés think they're doing better than they are, and the Square reports that fix your schedule.
Operations 10 min read
Do You Have to Put Calories on Your Café Menu? (Canada + US)
The 20-location threshold explained plainly — who is covered, what the exact required wording is, what it costs to get wrong, and why some independents post calories anyway.
Local SEO 9 min read
How to Respond to a Negative Google Review at Your Café
The honest playbook for bad Google reviews: what you can get removed, what you can't, and how to write a reply that wins over the person reading it next.
Square How-Tos 9 min read
Corporate Coffee Accounts: House Billing on Square Invoices
Offices want a monthly bill, not a card tap. Here's how to run corporate coffee accounts on Square Invoices without becoming an unpaid lender.
Operations 10 min read
Menu Engineering for Cafés: Stars, Plowhorses and Dogs
Popularity times profit puts every menu item in one of four boxes. Here's how to build the matrix from your Square item sales report and act on it.
Operations 10 min read
How to Train Café Staff for a Mobile Ordering App Launch
The app is the easy part. Here's the operator runbook for getting your baristas ready before the first mobile order lands mid-rush.
Square How-Tos 7 min read
How to Set Prep & Pickup Times on Square Online
The pickup time you quote is a promise. Here's how to set accurate prep times and order lead times on Square Online so orders arrive at a pace your café can actually hit.
Guides 12 min read
Is Your Café's Online Ordering Accessible? ADA & WCAG
A plain-English read on which accessibility rules actually apply to an independent café, and the handful of fixes that cover most real failures.
Square How-Tos 10 min read
How to Update Your Café's Holiday Hours Everywhere
A channel-by-channel holiday hours checklist for Square cafés, including the one gap where Square Online can't express a short day.
Square How-Tos 8 min read
Does Square Work Offline? Card Payments During an Outage
Square can keep taking card payments when your internet drops — but offline mode moves the risk onto you. Here's how it works and how to use it safely.
Square How-Tos 7 min read
How to Set Up Tip Pooling on Square for a Café
A clear walkthrough of Square's tip pooling — the three split methods, who's eligible, what plan you need, and the legal basics to get right before you turn it on.
Square How-Tos 7 min read
How to Track Inventory on Square for a Coffee Shop
A practical, no-fluff guide to Square's built-in inventory tracking for a café — what it counts well, where it falls short, and how to set it up in an afternoon.
Gift Cards 8 min read
Do Café Gift Cards Expire? Canada & US Rules
The honest, jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction answer on gift card expiry and fees for independent cafés — plus what Square actually enforces.
Loyalty & Retention 7 min read
What's a Good Repeat Customer Rate for a Coffee Shop?
The metric that predicts a café's survival better than foot traffic — how to measure it, what's normal, and how to move it.
Local SEO 7 min read
Google Business Profile Posts to Promote Café Specials
The free promotional slot most cafés ignore — how to use Google Business Profile Posts to push specials, offers, and events into local search.
Square How-Tos 7 min read
How to Mark Items Sold Out (86) on Square Online
The exact steps to mark an item sold out on Square, from the POS and Dashboard, plus how to auto-restock it the next morning.
Marketing & Growth 7 min read
Sell End-of-Day Café Surplus Without Losing Margin
A practical playbook for monetizing café surplus — surprise bags, flash deals, and push — plus an honest cost comparison with Too Good To Go.
Payments & Fees 7 min read
Interac Debit on Square: What Canadian Cafés Actually Pay
Interac debit is the cheapest way to get paid at a Canadian café counter. Here's exactly what Square charges, and how to lower your blended rate with it.
Payments 8 min read
Should Your Café Accept Cash App Pay on Square?
A plain-English look at Cash App Pay on Square — the fees, the surfaces it works on, the US-only catch, and whether it's worth turning on for a café.
Payments 9 min read
Why Square Holds Your Café's Funds (and What to Do)
An honest operator's guide to Square reserves and fund holds — what triggers them, how long the money is tied up, and how to reduce the odds.
Payments 7 min read
Afterpay for Cafés: Is Buy Now, Pay Later Worth It?
Afterpay costs a café about 6% + 30¢ per order. For a $5 latte that's absurd — but for catering, merch, and gift-card orders it can pencil out. The honest breakdown.
Guides 8 min read
Does My Coffee Shop Need a Mobile App? An Honest Answer
Not every café needs an app. Here's the honest test — regulars, rush, and repeat volume — plus realistic adoption numbers before you spend a dollar.
Guides 6 min read
How to Sell Coffee Beans & Merch Online With Square
Your bags of beans and branded mugs can sell while you sleep. Here's how to add shippable retail to a Square café without a second system.
Square How-Tos 6 min read
How to Set Up a Happy Hour Discount on Square
How to run an automatic, time-scheduled happy hour on Square without staff keying in codes — the setup steps, plan differences, and how to protect your margin.
Square How-Tos 6 min read
Square Team Management: Staff Roles & Permissions
A café owner's guide to Square Team Management: individual staff logins, what the free tier limits, when the paid tier pays for itself, and the permissions that protect your register.
Square How-Tos 8 min read
How to Switch From Toast to Square: A Café Guide
The honest plan for moving a café from Toast to Square: the contract math nobody warns you about, what carries over via CSV, and what you rebuild by hand.
Square How-Tos 8 min read
Is Square PCI Compliant? Card Security for Cafés Explained
Square is PCI Level 1 compliant and covers the burden for card data it handles — but the moment a third party touches a card number, scope shifts back to you.
Delivery & Direct Ordering 8 min read
How to Set Up Delivery on Square for Your Café
Every way to add delivery to a Square café — on-demand couriers, your own staff, or a marketplace — with real fees and a decision model.
Square How-Tos 6 min read
Is a Square Kitchen Display System Worth It for a Café?
What a Square Kitchen Display System costs, what it requires, and the honest test for whether your café actually needs one yet.
Delivery & Direct Ordering 6 min read
How to Recover Abandoned Online Orders at Your Café
Roughly two-thirds of food carts are abandoned. A practical playbook for recovering those lost café orders with Square Marketing, faster checkout, and push.
Payments & Fees 6 min read
How to Reduce Chargebacks on Square Online Orders
A plain-English guide to Square payment disputes for cafés: how the process works, what a lost chargeback actually costs, and how to prevent them.
Guides 7 min read
How to Set Up Curbside Pickup on Square for Your Café
Curbside pickup is a free Square Online fulfillment option. Here's how to set it up, staff it, and keep the hand-off fast at a busy café.
Square How-To 8 min read
How to Handle Refunds on Square Online Orders
Refunds are unavoidable in pickup and delivery. Here's how to process them cleanly on Square, what they actually cost you, and when store credit beats a refund.
Square How-To 8 min read
How to Reduce Square Processing Fees for Your Cafe
You can't negotiate Square's headline rate at low volume, but you can change how you take payment — and that's where the real savings hide.
Square How-Tos 7 min read
How to Let Customers Schedule Pickup Orders on Square
A practical, operator-grade walkthrough for letting guests book a pickup time on Square, plus the limits that keep your kitchen from drowning.
Square How-Tos 7 min read
How Fast Does Square Pay Out? Deposit Times for Cafés
A plain-English breakdown of Square's transfer schedule, the daily cutoff that decides which sales batch when, and how to get paid faster without overpaying.
Guides 7 min read
How to Price Your Café Menu for Online Ordering
A practical method for pricing your online menu: target food-cost percentages, when to mark up for delivery, and the rounding tricks that protect margin.
Delivery & Direct Ordering 8 min read
Square Online vs ChowNow for Cafés: Honest Comparison
A clear, numbers-first comparison of Square Online and ChowNow for an independent café, plus the volume math that tells you which one is cheaper.
Delivery & Direct Ordering 7 min read
Phone Orders vs Online Ordering for Cafés: The Real Cost
An operator-grade comparison of taking orders by phone versus online — the hidden labour cost, the missed-call revenue leak, accuracy, and when each still makes sense.
Guides 8 min read
Square Online Menu Modifiers & Allergens: A Café Setup Guide
How to build clean modifier sets and surface allergen info in Square so online orders are accurate, profitable, and safe — without confusing your kitchen.
Loyalty & Retention 9 min read
How to Win Back Lapsed Café Customers (Without Discounting to Death)
Define lapsed correctly, target the right guests, and bring them back with a message that protects margin — not a blanket 50%-off blast.
Payments & Tipping 8 min read
Do Mobile Orders Get Fewer Tips? Tipping on Square
An honest look at tipping on pickup and mobile orders: how to turn it on in Square, what actually moves the tip rate, and where a branded app helps.
Comparisons 6 min read
Square vs Shopify for Café Online Ordering
Shopify is built for shipping products; Square is built for serving food. Here's the honest pricing-and-fit comparison for a café taking pickup orders.
Operations 7 min read
How to Manage Online Orders in Your Square Kitchen
Online orders land in the same Square system as in-store sales. Here's how to route them to a display or printer, set prep times, and throttle the rush.
Apps & Technology 7 min read
Square Hardware for Cafés: Reader, Stand or Register?
Reader, Stand, Terminal, Kiosk, or Register? A plain-English buying guide to Square hardware for a café, with current US prices and what each is actually for.
Payments & Fees 6 min read
Can Cafés Charge a Credit Card Surcharge? Canada & US Rules
What's legal, what's capped, and whether passing card fees to customers actually helps a café—or just costs you goodwill.
Guides 6 min read
How Long Does It Take to Launch a Restaurant App?
A realistic, no-hype timeline for getting a branded café app live—and why most of the wait is app store review, not coding.
Guides 7 min read
How to Set Up Square Online Ordering for Pickup (Step by Step)
A no-fluff walkthrough of standing up commission-free pickup ordering on the Square Online site you probably already have.
Marketing & Retention 7 min read
Can You Email or Text Café Customers in Canada? (CASL)
What Canada's anti-spam law (CASL) actually requires before you email or text your café customers — consent, the 2-year window, and where push fits.
Operations 7 min read
How to Cut Coffee Shop Morning Rush Wait Times
The morning rush decides your daily revenue. Here's how order-ahead, pickup timing, and station layout cut wait times without adding staff.
POS Comparisons 8 min read
Square vs Lightspeed for a Café or Coffee Shop
Square vs Lightspeed for a coffee shop, compared on the things that actually matter: monthly cost, processing rates, online ordering, and loyalty.
Guides 7 min read
Square Kiosk vs Mobile Order-Ahead for Your Café
Square Kiosk and mobile order-ahead solve different problems. Here's what each costs, what each is good at, and why most cafés end up wanting both.
Guides 6 min read
Multi-Location Mobile Ordering on Square: A Setup Guide
A practical playbook for offering order-ahead across multiple café locations on Square — location-aware menus, pickup routing, reporting, and per-site cost.
Guides 6 min read
How to Reduce No-Shows on Café Pickup Orders
A practical guide to cutting no-shows and uncollected pickup orders at your café — prepayment, smart prep timing, ready-notifications, and how to handle the ones that still slip through.
Guides 7 min read
How to Calculate the ROI of a Branded Restaurant App
Stop guessing. Here's the exact math to decide whether a $99/month branded app earns its keep at your café — break-even, payback, and the levers that move it.
Square How-Tos 6 min read
How to Accept Pre-Orders and Catering on Square
Holiday boxes, next-day pickups, and catering trays all need scheduled ordering. Here's how to set up pre-orders and order scheduling on Square Online, step by step.
Loyalty & Retention 8 min read
How Much Does a Coffee Shop Loyalty Program Cost?
Punch cards, Square Loyalty, standalone loyalty apps, or loyalty bundled into a branded app — here's what each actually costs and when it pays for itself.
Growth & Marketing 7 min read
How to Increase Average Order Value at Your Café
AOV is the cheapest growth lever you have. Here are the menu, upsell, and mobile-ordering tactics that lift it without adding a single new customer.
Loyalty & Retention 7 min read
Email vs SMS vs Push: How Cafés Should Reach Customers
Email is cheap, SMS gets read, push is free once you have an app. Here's how the three customer-messaging channels actually compare for a café — and how to use them together.
Square How-Tos 7 min read
How to Switch From Clover to Square Without Losing Data
Moving a café off Clover and onto Square, the honest way: what carries over via CSV, what you have to rebuild by hand, and how to cut over without a bad morning.
Square How-Tos 7 min read
Tap to Pay on iPhone for Cafés: Setup, Fees & Limits
Turn your iPhone into a card reader with Square — what it costs, which iPhones work, the contactless tap limit, and where a phone-only setup hits a wall.
Square How-Tos 7 min read
Clover vs Square for a Café: Which POS Is Better?
An operator-grade comparison of Clover and Square for a small café — what each really costs once you add hardware, software, and processing.
Loyalty & Retention 6 min read
Customer Lifetime Value for Coffee Shops, Explained
A plain-language guide to customer lifetime value for cafés — the simple formula, a worked example, and what it changes about how you spend on marketing.
Delivery & Direct Ordering 6 min read
SkipTheDishes Fees for Restaurants in Canada (2026)
A clear, Canada-specific breakdown of what SkipTheDishes actually costs a restaurant — commission, processing, and marketing fees — plus how to keep more of each order.
Square How-Tos 7 min read
How to Set Up a Coffee Subscription or Membership on Square
Recurring revenue for a café, explained: how to price and launch a coffee subscription or membership on Square without the math working against you.
Square How-Tos 7 min read
Toast vs Square for a Café: Which POS Should You Pick?
A fair, operator-grade comparison of Toast and Square for a small café — real monthly costs, processing rates, contracts, and how to decide.
Guides 7 min read
QR Code Ordering for Cafés: How It Works and What It Costs
QR ordering lets guests scan, order, and pay from their own phone. Here's how to set it up on Square, what it costs, and its honest limits.
Square How-Tos 8 min read
Square Fees for Restaurants Explained (2026 Breakdown)
A plain-English breakdown of every fee Square charges a restaurant — processing rates, software plans, and what it adds up to per month.
Square How-Tos 6 min read
Square for Restaurants vs Square POS: Which Do You Need?
Square sells two ways to run a food business. Here's the honest difference for a café or quick-service spot, and how to pick.
Local SEO 7 min read
Add Your Own Ordering Link to Google Business Profile
A step-by-step guide to putting your own direct ordering link on the 'Order online' button of your Google Business Profile, instead of leaving it to third parties.
Apps & Technology 7 min read
App Store Optimization for Café & Restaurant Apps
How to write the title, subtitle, keywords, and screenshots for your café's branded app so it ranks for your own name and converts the people who search it.
Apps & Technology 7 min read
Square Online vs. a Branded App: Which Fits Your Café?
Square Online is free and fast; a branded app costs a flat monthly fee but owns the customer. A side-by-side on cost, loyalty, push, and effort for a café on Square.
Guides 8 min read
Apple Pay & Google Pay for Café Ordering on Square
A practical guide to turning on Apple Pay and Google Pay for café ordering on Square — what you get out of the box, what to configure, and what it costs.
Guides 7 min read
How to Sell eGift Cards for Your Café on Square
What it actually costs to sell Square eGift cards, how to set them up, and how to use them as a low-cost engine for prepaid revenue and repeat visits.
Loyalty & Retention 11 min read
Square Loyalty for Cafés: Turn First-Timers into Regulars
An operator-grade guide to designing a Square Loyalty program for a café — earn rates, reward thresholds, what it costs, and how a branded app amplifies it.
Mobile Ordering 12 min read
How to Set Up Mobile Order-Ahead on Square for Your Café
A hands-on walkthrough of enabling order-ahead pickup on Square — every setting that matters, plus where a free Square site ends and a branded app begins.
Delivery & Direct Ordering 10 min read
How to Take Online Orders Without Paying Commission
A fair, operator-grade walkthrough of every commission-free way to take online orders, and how to stand one up this week.