Dine-in table service flow: QR ordering, table sessions, pay at table, and tipping

Starting a table session

Everything at the table starts with a session. A guest scans a QR code left at the table or opens the /table-service page directly and starts a session tied to that table number, with a guest name and, optionally, an email attached. Starting a new session for a table archives whatever session existed there before it, so a party that sat down an hour ago doesn't get its requests or its order mixed in with the party sitting there now. Staff can look back at a table's session history without untangling two visits from each other.

Requests: routed to the right role, timed both ways

Once a session is running, a guest can send a request rather than flagging someone down across a busy room — a refill, a question, a problem with the order, whatever it is — and route it to a server, a host, or a manager depending on what it actually needs. Each request tracks when it was first acknowledged and when it was completed, which turns "the server never came back" from a vague complaint into something the floor can actually see and measure. That timing data is as useful to a manager reviewing service after a shift as it is to the guest waiting on a refill in the moment.

Table status: what the whole floor can see at once

A table moves through a defined set of stages as a visit progresses — sat, drinks, ordered, food, dessert, check, and paid — with needs_help and slow available as flags when something's off track. A host seating a new party or a manager checking the room doesn't have to walk the floor to know which tables are between courses and which one has been sitting on an empty water glass for fifteen minutes; the status board shows it. That visibility is most of the value here — it turns "how's table 12 doing" from a question you have to walk over and ask into something you can see from the pass.

Paying at the table and how tips get split

A dine-in order carries a tip amount the guest enters and a choice of how it's allocated — straight to the server, into a kitchen pool, split across the whole team, or held for manager review before it's assigned. The tax, any service charge, and the tip are all calculated on the server rather than trusted from whatever a guest's browser sends, which matters more than it sounds like: a tampered request can't quietly shave a dollar off a total that's actually being charged. What that tip-allocation choice means for your own payroll and tip-pooling policy is a decision you make; the platform tracks and computes the split, but how you actually run tip pooling among your staff is yours to set.

Tipping and Texas wage law: what's confirmed, and what to check yourself

Texas follows the federal minimum wage — $7.25 an hour, confirmed directly on the Texas Workforce Commission's own minimum wage page, which also notes that employers may count tips and the value of meals or lodging toward minimum wage under certain restrictions. What that page does not spell out is a specific tipped-employee cash wage or a maximum tip-credit dollar amount, so don't assume a commonly cited federal figure automatically applies to your payroll in Texas without confirming it directly with TWC or a payroll professional. Get that number right before you build your pay structure around it — a tip-allocation feature can tell you how a tip was split; it can't tell you what your legal minimum cash wage actually is.

Where this flow actually earns its keep

The real payoff of a QR-and-status-board flow isn't the QR code itself — it's the visibility it gives a small floor staff. A room can run without someone constantly circling every table to check in, because a raised request and a status board do a version of that checking automatically. That matters most exactly when you're short-staffed on a busy night, which is usually the night you'd most want it working.