How to choose the best restaurant software in Nepal

Before any demo, write down a normal busy hour: how many tables are full, who takes the orders, how they reach the kitchen and the bar, and how guests pay. Add what you have beyond the dining room: take-away, delivery, rooms, a second branch.

Then write the three things that go wrong most often. Orders lost on the way to the kitchen, bills added up wrong and tables waiting for a waiter are the usual ones. The right software fixes your three; features you won't use only make it harder to learn.

Most of your staff already carry an Android phone: Android phones made 78% of mobile web traffic in Nepal in October 2026 (StatCounter). Software that runs on ordinary Android phones and in any browser costs you nothing extra when a phone breaks or a new waiter joins.

Ask exactly what devices it needs and what happens if one fails mid-shift. Special terminals, tablets that only work with one app, or a single computer at the counter tie you to one seller's prices and repair times.

If guests will order from their own phones, the menu has to open from a QR code in the phone's browser, on Android and iPhone alike: iPhones made 22% of mobile web traffic in Nepal in October 2026 (StatCounter). Few guests will install an app to order one lunch.

Scan the seller's demo QR code with your own phone, on mobile data. Check how long the menu takes to open, whether the photos load, whether it reads in English and in Nepali, and what a guest sees when a dish is sold out.

The kitchen order ticket (KOT) is where most orders go wrong: a slip lost, a dish added later and never passed on, a drink sent to the kitchen instead of the bar. Ask how an order gets from the table to the kitchen, and how drinks get to the bar on their own ticket (a BOT).

Then ask what happens in the middle of a rush. When a waiter adds a dish to an order that's already cooking, does the kitchen see it? When the kitchen runs out of something, does the menu stop offering it? Can the kitchen tell the waiter that a dish is ready, or that there's a problem with it?

Every dish ordered should be on the bill without anyone typing it again. Ask to see a table split its bill, two tables combined into one bill, a dish taken off after a mistake, and a bill paid half in cash and half by QR.

Check, too, that nothing is added that shouldn't be. Since January 2023, when the Supreme Court ruled out the 10% service charge, no restaurant may add one to a customer's bill (Kathmandu Post), so make sure the software doesn't do it by default.

Most connections in Nepal are mobile: 88.7% of broadband subscriptions in mid-2026 were mobile broadband (Nepal Telecommunications Authority). Complaints about slow speeds and unreliable connections are common, especially outside the big cities (Kathmandu Post, 2026).

So test the software on mobile data, in your own building, at your busiest hour. Ask what a waiter sees when an order can't get through: whether the app says so, whether they can send it again, and whether the same order can end up in the kitchen twice.

Restaurant work has high turnover (Business 360, 2025), so new staff must be able to learn their part in a shift, and someone who leaves must lose access the same day. Ask how you add and remove a person, and how long training takes for a waiter, a cook and a cashier.

Each role should see what it needs and nothing more: the waiter their tables, the kitchen its tickets, the manager the bills, the owner everything. Ask, too, whether the software records who cancelled a dish or changed a bill, and why.

The point of the numbers is to decide something. Ask to see a day's sales, the best and worst sellers, what was cancelled and why, and how today compares with the same day last week. If you have several branches, ask to see them side by side and one at a time.

Check that you can see them from your own phone, away from the restaurant, and ask how you get your data out if you ever leave.

Ask who sets it up, how long it takes and whether anyone needs to visit. Then ask about help: in which language, by phone or by message, at what hours. Restaurants are busiest when offices are closed, in the evenings, at weekends and over Dashain and Tihar, so ask what happens when something stops working at 8 pm on a Saturday.

Sellers price in different ways: by branch, by device, by user, or by feature. Ask for everything you will pay in the first year and after it, in writing.

Ask every seller the same questions, and write their answers side by side.

A demo shows the software at its best. Before you commit, ask to try it with your own menu, your own tables and your own staff, through at least one real busy meal. Watch the waiters and the kitchen rather than the screen: if they're faster and calmer by the end of the week, it's working.

Ask the seller for two restaurants like yours that use it, and call them. Ask what went wrong in the first month and how quickly it was fixed.