Product updates, infrastructure deep-dives, and hospitality-technology research from the team behind ORDR.https://ordr.menu/en-GBhttps://ordr.menu/blog/ai-in-hospitality-worth-it-or-hype/https://ordr.menu/blog/ai-in-hospitality-worth-it-or-hype/Every POS pitch in 2026 says "AI-powered". Some of those claims are real product, some are wallpaper. We separate the two — using ORDR's actual shipping AI features, and the ones we deliberately do not ship — and argue for the narrow, bounded use of machine learning in hospitality software.Wed, 13 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTaimachine-learningstrategytomhttps://ordr.menu/blog/off-cloudflare-onto-gray-cloud-aws/https://ordr.menu/blog/off-cloudflare-onto-gray-cloud-aws/In April 2026 we finished moving ORDR from orange-cloud Cloudflare back to a traditional CDN-less AWS setup. Here is why a restaurant POS cares about the intermittent Spain / La Liga IP blocks, what we did, and what we gave up.Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTinfrastructurecloudflareawscarloshttps://ordr.menu/blog/moving-off-chromecast-for-order-displays/https://ordr.menu/blog/moving-off-chromecast-for-order-displays/Chromecast with Google TV is discontinued. We have spent the year looking at what replaces it for restaurant order displays — Fire TV, Onn, Vega OS, Apple TV — and here is where we landed.Fri, 17 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThardwaredisplayskitchencarloshttps://ordr.menu/blog/tap-to-pay-on-iphone-uk-2026/https://ordr.menu/blog/tap-to-pay-on-iphone-uk-2026/Tap to Pay on iPhone has quietly become a real option for UK restaurants and bars. Here is what is different, what is the same as a traditional terminal, and why you still probably want a proper card reader on your main counter.Wed, 15 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTpaymentshardwareiphonecarloshttps://ordr.menu/blog/qr-ordering-three-years-in/https://ordr.menu/blog/qr-ordering-three-years-in/The pandemic made QR ordering a default. Three years on, the patterns that worked are clear, the dark patterns are clearer, and the temptation to bolt on every clever idea is the thing to resist. A retrospective on the ORDR customer-ordering flow.Tue, 12 Nov 2024 00:00:00 GMTdesignqr-orderingcustomer-experiencemartahttps://ordr.menu/blog/multilingual-menus-where-machine-translation-gets-it-wrong/https://ordr.menu/blog/multilingual-menus-where-machine-translation-gets-it-wrong/Machine translation is good enough for prose and dangerous for menus. Dishes are full of proper nouns, regional terms and cultural context that NMT systems mis-handle in specific, repeatable ways. Here is what we have seen go wrong, why, and the review gate ORDR builds in.Wed, 08 May 2024 00:00:00 GMTtranslationsmachine-learningmenusfrancescohttps://ordr.menu/blog/event-ticketing-bars-nightclubs-year-in/https://ordr.menu/blog/event-ticketing-bars-nightclubs-year-in/A year after we rolled out events inside the ORDR POS, the punchline is the one we hoped for: when ticketing lives inside the till, every paid ticket becomes a pre-paid table, and the third-party 8–12% fee stays at the venue. Here is what we learned, and where third-party platforms are still the right call.Mon, 22 Apr 2024 00:00:00 GMTeventsticketingpaymentssalestomhttps://ordr.menu/blog/monolith-for-life-except-when-not/https://ordr.menu/blog/monolith-for-life-except-when-not/ORDR is a Rails monolith and will stay one. CloudPrint, the printer microservice, had to live somewhere else — but for the boring physical reason that it talks to a thermal printer in a venue, not because the monolith was failing us. The rule we use: split out only when the constraint forces it.Tue, 19 Mar 2024 00:00:00 GMTarchitecturerailsmicroservicescloudprintcarloshttps://ordr.menu/blog/switching-to-bun/https://ordr.menu/blog/switching-to-bun/After two years on Yarn, we moved ORDR's JavaScript toolchain to Bun in late 2023. Install time dropped by an order of magnitude, local dev server startup more than halved, and the migration itself took an afternoon. Here is what we changed, what we measured, and what we still use Node for.Tue, 26 Sep 2023 00:00:00 GMTbunyarnjavascripttoolingdxcarloshttps://ordr.menu/blog/features-march-april-2023/https://ordr.menu/blog/features-march-april-2023/Phone-friendly staff ordering, a configurable end-of-day cut-off for reports, and product categories surfaced across downloadable reports. Three quality-of-life features bundled into one update.Wed, 26 Apr 2023 00:00:00 GMTfeaturesreportsmobilefrancescohttps://ordr.menu/blog/features-february-2023/https://ordr.menu/blog/features-february-2023/Payment terminals now work across any number of devices and networks, and our pre-payment flow has had a months-long overhaul based on thousands of real orders.Thu, 23 Feb 2023 00:00:00 GMTfeaturespaymentscarloshttps://ordr.menu/blog/feature-perfect-payment-terminals/https://ordr.menu/blog/feature-perfect-payment-terminals/Card machines. PQDs. Payment terminals. Whatever you call them, they are the lifeline of hospitality. We wanted one that was fast, reconciled to a bill automatically, and flexible enough for the chaos of a busy service.Fri, 23 Sep 2022 00:00:00 GMTfeaturespaymentscarloshttps://ordr.menu/blog/feature-automagic-translations/https://ordr.menu/blog/feature-automagic-translations/Translating a menu by hand is tedious. From today, getting started — or adding a new language — is a single click. Under the hood, it is machine translation, so verify with a native speaker before going live.Sun, 14 Aug 2022 00:00:00 GMTfeaturestranslationsfrancescohttps://ordr.menu/blog/feature-translated-kitchen-tickets/https://ordr.menu/blog/feature-translated-kitchen-tickets/The same translation engine that helps customers read your menu can also print kitchen tickets in the language your chefs speak. Fewer mistakes on the line, happier staff.Sat, 23 Jul 2022 00:00:00 GMTfeaturestranslationsprintingfrancescohttps://ordr.menu/blog/feature-translated-menus/https://ordr.menu/blog/feature-translated-menus/Maintain a single menu across every language your customers speak. Prices, photos, and descriptions stay in sync automatically, and ORDR shows each customer the right menu based on their device language.Wed, 23 Feb 2022 00:00:00 GMTfeaturestranslationsfrancesco