Online ordering for delis: the sandwich builder, the lunch rush and the platters

Online ordering for a deli lets customers build a sandwich exactly the way they'd say it at the counter, pick it up at 12:15 without waiting, and book a party platter for tomorrow, all from your own link. With Menuthere, bread is a required choice, toppings are capped, extra meat adds its price, and the kitchen ticket prints every line. Customers pay into your own Stripe account and you pay no commission. The Free plan takes 50 orders a month. Lite, at $17 a month, adds unlimited orders, card payments, lunch pickup slots and booked platters.

Create your free ordering pageBook a demo (opens in a new tab)

Three things a deli sells online

The sandwich build sheet

Everything in the table is on the Free plan. On the customer's screen each group shows its rule, such as "Required · choose 1" or "Optional · up to 6 in total", so nobody forgets the bread. The kitchen ticket lists the size, every choice and the customer's note, with no prices, and a separate bill can print at the counter.

Mark each item's allergens and calories: gluten in bread, milk in cheese, eggs in mayo and egg salad, mustard, sesame on seeded rolls, fish in tuna. Customers see them when they open the dish. Add-on options don't carry their own allergen marks, so name them clearly, such as "Gluten-free roll".

Meats and cheeses by the pound: the honest limit

At the counter, customers ask for "a half pound of pastrami, sliced thin". Online, Menuthere can't take a weight typed by the customer, and it can't charge by the scale. A dish set to Price as per Size / Custom shows on the menu without an Add button: it's for the counter, where staff type the price.

The workaround most delis use: sell fixed weights as sizes.

Weigh to the size ordered. If you want to weigh and charge the exact amount, keep those items for the counter and the POS, and leave them off online.

The lunch rush, 11:30 AM to 1:30 PM

• Pickup in 15 or 30 minutes. With rolling slots (Lite), checkout offers times counted from now. They stay inside your opening hours.
• Office orders the day before. Fixed time ranges, such as 11:30 AM to 12:00 PM and 12:00 to 12:30 PM, let an office book 14 sandwiches for tomorrow.
• Make them in slot order. Booked orders wait in the Prebookings tab; a red Prepare now box counts down everything due within the hour.
• It rings until accepted. New orders ring on the partner app (Android, iPhone, Windows). Auto-accept after 30 seconds to 2 minutes and automatic printing keep tickets flowing when everyone's on the slicer.
• Honest wait times. Set the average takeaway time customers see, such as 15 minutes, and raise it at noon.
• Out of rye? Rye is an add-on option, and options have no on/off switch, so remove it from the Bread group until the delivery comes. A whole sandwich switches off in one tap.

Party platters with notice

Trays need planning, and you want the order before you slice. Dishes that need notice (Lite):

1. In Prebooking settings, set Which orders can be prebooked to Specific items and tick your platters and boxed lunches.
2. Set Earliest booking time to 1 day.
3. Under Only made on, pick the days you make trays, such as Monday to Saturday.
4. Use Fixed time ranges for pickup and delivery, such as 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM.

A basket of platters must be booked for a date that meets the notice. A platter and a lunch sandwich for now can't go in one order; Menuthere asks the customer to split it. For quotes on larger events, the free catering quote maker writes a priced quote; for the online side, see online ordering for catering.

Food safety for trays. FDA's consumer advice is that perishable food such as meat, poultry, seafood and eggs shouldn't sit at room temperature for more than two hours, or one hour if the air is above 90°F, and fridges should be at or below 40°F. Put a line in each platter's description, such as "Keep refrigerated; serve within 2 hours of setting out", so the customer reads it before they order.

What a sandwich costs you, and what an order costs to take

Ingredients, at US retail prices (BLS, September 2026): boneless ham $5.45 a pound, cheddar $6.13 a pound, white bread $1.83 a pound. A sandwich with 4 oz of ham ($1.36), 1 oz of cheddar ($0.38) and a quarter pound of bread ($0.46) is $2.20 in those three items, before toppings, packaging and labor. Your wholesale prices will be lower; put your own in the recipe cost calculator and the menu price calculator.

Labor for platters. BLS put the median wage for food preparation workers at $16.98 an hour (May 2025). A large platter that takes 45 minutes to build costs about $12.74 in labor at that rate.

Ordering cost. A deli takes 800 online orders a month at $16 ($12,800) plus 30 platters at $110 ($3,300).

With your own ordering, delivery is yours to cover: your driver, or Uber couriers on your own Uber Direct account, where the customer pays Uber's live fee at checkout (how Uber Direct works for your own orders). App rates are from our DoorDash and Uber Eats pages.

Not a fit if

• You must charge by exact weight online. Sell fixed weights as sizes, or keep weighed items at the counter.
• You need invoices with net-30 terms for corporate catering. Menuthere takes payment at the order, online or at pickup.
• Your POS must receive web orders. There's no ready-made link to Square, Toast or Clover.

UK deli? Read how to grow a deli business.

Set up online ordering for your deli

1. Create your store. Find your deli on Google to fill in your name, address, hours and photos.
2. Import the menu. Upload a photo or PDF of your board, then check each item.
3. Build the sandwiches. Sizes, a required bread choice, cheese, capped toppings and priced extras.
4. Add meats by weight as sizes. ¼ lb, ½ lb and 1 lb, each with its own price.
5. Set up platters (Lite). Specific items, 1 day's notice, your tray days and pickup ranges.
6. Turn on lunch slots. Rolling from now, every 15 minutes, 2 slots, and an average takeaway time.
7. Connect Stripe and test. Order a 12" Italian with double meat for 12:15, and book a platter for tomorrow.

Sandwiches, sliced meats and platters from your own link, 0% commission.

Create your free ordering pageBook a demo (opens in a new tab)