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Point of Sale — Restaurant Operations

Hotel restaurants operate at a pace that leaves no room for error — servers manage multiple tables at once, kitchens race against the clock, and any miscommunication lands directly on the guest. I redesigned Hotelogix's POS around the operational reality of hotel food and beverage service, embedding with staff across three properties to rebuild order flow, kitchen communication, and table awareness from the ground up.

View Figma File
POS dashboard screenshot

Project Snapshot

Built for restaurants that never slow down.

Designed a modern Point of Sale system to simplify restaurant operations, helping staff manage tables, orders, and kitchen coordination during peak service hours.

Role
Founding Product Designer
Timeline
Confidential
Team
Product · Engineering · Customer Success
Contribution
Product Strategy · UX Design · Interaction Design · UI Design · Information Architecture · Design Systems · Cross-functional Collaboration

What I Owned

  • Led the end-to-end redesign of the restaurant POS experience.
  • Simplified table management and order workflows.
  • Designed real-time operational interfaces for busy service environments.
  • Collaborated with Product, Engineering, and Customer Success from discovery through implementation.
02At a Glance

Designed for high-volume restaurant operations.

Helping restaurant teams manage tables, orders, and kitchen coordination with greater speed and operational efficiency.

40%
Improvement in
High-Volume Service
40%
Faster Order
Processing
Real-time
Table
Management
Live
Kitchen
Coordination
03The Challenge

Peak-hour restaurant operations were slowing service.

Managing tables, processing orders, coordinating kitchens, and serving guests required staff to constantly switch between operational tasks. The lack of a unified workflow created delays, increased manual effort, and slowed service during busy hours.

Slow Order ProcessingLimited Table VisibilityDelayed Kitchen CommunicationRepetitive OperationsPeak Hour BottlenecksFragmented Service Experience
01
Slow Order Processing

Staff spent unnecessary time navigating between ordering and billing workflows.

02
Limited Table Visibility

Table occupancy and service status weren't easy to monitor in real time.

03
Delayed Kitchen Communication

Order updates weren't efficiently communicated between service staff and kitchen teams.

04
Repetitive Operations

Routine actions like splitting bills, transferring tables, and modifying orders required multiple steps.

05
Peak Hour Bottlenecks

As customer volume increased, operational workflows became increasingly difficult to manage.

06
Fragmented Service Experience

Ordering, billing, and table management existed across disconnected workflows.

04Operational Lifecycle

Understanding restaurant operations end to end.

Mapping the service journey helped identify operational bottlenecks from seating guests through order fulfillment and payment.

01
Table Management
02
Guest Seating
03
Order Taking
04
Kitchen Processing
05
Billing
06
Payment
05Research Insights

Understanding how restaurant teams actually work.

The research focused on observing how servers, cashiers, managers, and kitchen staff collaborated during high-volume service periods.

Key Insight
Service Speed Drives Everything

Small delays quickly cascade during peak hours.

Confirmed
Pending
Checked-in
Cancelled
Delays compound fast
Tables Are Constantly Changing

Staff need real-time visibility into occupancy and status.

Status changes by the minute
Kitchen Coordination Is Critical

Fast communication between service and kitchen teams directly affects customer experience.

Front of house to kitchen
Managers Need Operational Visibility

Restaurant managers monitor service, staffing, and order flow simultaneously.

Three things at once
Exceptions Are Common

Split bills, table transfers, order edits, and cancellations happen continuously.

The edge case is the norm
RESEARCH METHODS

A mix of qualitative and quantitative approaches.

Restaurants Observed
3
Peak-Hour Observations
20+ hrs
Staff Interviews
15+
Competitive Benchmarking
6+ Products
Research Timeline
3 Months

What We Learned

Interview 01
Restaurant Server

Most delays happen before the food even reaches the kitchen.

Insight

Reducing order entry time would significantly improve overall service speed.

Interview 02
Restaurant Manager

I need to know which tables need attention without asking my staff.

Insight

Real-time table visibility was essential for operational awareness.

Interview 03
Kitchen Staff

Late or incorrect orders slow everyone down.

Insight

Clear communication between front-of-house and kitchen staff reduced operational friction.

07The Solution

Designing a faster restaurant operating system.

Rather than optimizing individual screens, the redesign focused on creating connected workflows that reduced manual effort and supported fast-paced restaurant operations.

01

Smart Table Dashboard

Challenge
Restaurant teams struggled to monitor table occupancy and service status.
Approach
Designed a live table management dashboard with real-time occupancy and service indicators.
Impact
Faster table turnover
Improved operational visibility
Table dashboard screenshot
02

Streamlined Order Management

Challenge
Taking and modifying orders required repetitive actions.
Approach
Simplified order creation, editing, and routing to reduce interaction costs.
Impact
40% faster order processing
Reduced service delays
Order management screenshot
03

Kitchen Order Workflow

Challenge
Kitchen communication slowed during busy service hours.
Approach
Created a centralized order queue with clear preparation status and priority.
Impact
Faster order-to-kitchen communication
Better kitchen coordination
Kitchen workflow screenshot
04

Flexible Billing

Challenge
Split bills and payment workflows interrupted service.
Approach
Designed quick billing actions for transfers, split payments, and settlements.
Impact
Faster checkout
Fewer billing errors
Billing screenshot
Smart Table Dashboard
Streamlined Ordering
Kitchen Order Workflow
Flexible Billing
08Understanding the Ecosystem

Every order touches more systems than the table it started at.

Before redesigning the interface, I mapped the full order lifecycle — from table to kitchen to payment to shift close — to understand where hotel F&B operations actually broke down.

09Design System

Building better interfaces with design systems.

A scalable design language built for hospitality operations — color, typography, spacing, and components designed for consistency across every POS module.

Design system applied — POS component library mockup
01Color System
Primary
#1C46F2
#8a9ff4
#859dff
#dde3fd
#111111
Semantic
Success
Warning
Error
Info
Neutral
Neutral Scale
02Typography — Manrope
AaManrope
Heading 1
34–56px / 1.15
Regular
Heading 2
28–42px / 1.3
Regular
Heading 3
18–22px / 1.3
Regular
Body
13.5–16px / 1.6
Regular
03Spacing & Layout
Spacing Scale
4
4px
8
8px
12
12px
16
16px
24
24px
32
32px
48
48px
64
64px
10 — IMPACT

Designed for faster restaurant operations.

The redesigned POS streamlined restaurant workflows, helping teams manage tables, orders, and payments more efficiently during peak service.

01
40% ↑

Improvement in high-volume service

02
40% ↓

Faster order processing

03
Real-time

Operational visibility

04
Simplified

Restaurant workflows

11Lessons Learned
Hotelogix POS Case Study

Lessons Learned

Three pilot properties and a lot of hours on the service floor taught me what actually holds up under pressure. These six lessons now guide every product decision I make.

01

The best research happens off the screen.

Shadowing real dinner service surfaced constraints no interview could have.

Hotelogix POS floor dashboard
Open Tables
2412%
Covers Tonight
1869%
Avg Ticket Time
14m6%
02

One order touches every station.

A change at the table ripples through kitchen, bar, and the final bill.

Servers
Order Entry
Kitchen
Ticket Queue
Cashier
Billing
Bar
Drinks Queue
Management
Shift Reports
03

Context beats convention every time.

Standard POS patterns fail if they ignore the physical room they're used in.

Rooftop
Bar
Guest
Dining
Service
Efficiency
Back of House
Kitchen
04

Role-specific design isn't a luxury.

Server, cashier, and kitchen operator each needed their own purpose-built view.

Product
Design
Engineering

The best POS disappears into the service.
Staff should think about the guest, not the screen.

— Internal Design Principle
Operational Efficiency
↑ 28%
vs last month
05

Speed is measured in taps, not features.

In peak service every extra tap has a real cost — efficiency has to be designed in.

Task Completion Rate
76% 18%
After Redesign
18%
improvement
06

Design systems unlock consistency at scale.

Shared components kept every POS module coherent as the product grew.

Primary Button
Secondary Button
Input Field

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