Online ordering for fast casual restaurants: bowls at lunch speed

Online ordering for a fast casual restaurant has to do three things: take a build-your-own order with every choice spelled out, keep up at 12:15 PM, and grow with you from one location to several. With Menuthere, base and protein are required choices, toppings are capped, and the ticket prints every line. Customers pick a pickup time and pay into your own Stripe account, with no commission. Calories show on each item on every plan, and a head office on Pro runs several locations from one login. The Free plan takes 50 orders a month; Lite, at $17 a month, adds unlimited orders, card payments and pickup slots.

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The bowl build sheet

Fast casual menus are assembly lines. Online, every station becomes a choice group.

Everything above is on the Free plan. On the customer's screen each group shows its rule ("Required · choose 1", "Optional · up to 5 in total"). Each option's price is added once per pick. The kitchen ticket shows the item, every choice and the customer's note, with no prices.

Lunch throughput, 11:45 AM to 1:15 PM

There's no automatic cap on orders per slot. If a slot fills, raise the average time customers see or close online ordering for a few minutes with the Open/Closed switch.

Calories and FDA menu labeling

Every Menuthere plan lets you add calories and the 14 allergens to each item. Customers see them when they open the item, and the Diner layout shows a short line such as "640 kcal · 3 allergens" on the menu itself.

That matters most when you grow. FDA's menu labeling rule, 21 CFR 101.11, applies to a "covered establishment": a restaurant that is part of a chain with 20 or more locations doing business under the same name and offering substantially the same menu items. Its definition of a menu explicitly includes "menus on the Internet". Covered restaurants must, among other things:

The announcement bar fits one line of up to 100 characters, and it doesn't show in the Default and Sidebar menu layouts, so pick a layout that shows it. Calories for build-your-own items are harder: one approach is calories per base and per protein in the option names. Read our FDA menu labeling requirements guide, and check with your own adviser. Restaurants under 20 locations can register to follow the rule voluntarily.

From one location to several

On Pro, a head office sits over all your locations.

• One login, every store. The head office shows today's sales for each location, all their orders, analytics, settlements and bills, and opens any location's dashboard in one press.
• Each location stays separate. Every branch keeps its own login, menu, orders and plan (Free, Lite or Pro), so a manager runs their own store.
• New store, same menu. Adding a branch can copy an existing branch's categories and dishes, every dish switched on. The new branch copies the logo, colors, currency and time zone of your first location.
• A brand page with an outlet picker lets customers choose their location before they order.

Tax, tips and the bill

Menuthere labels the tax line Sales tax for US stores. You set your store's rate, and outside India a dish can have its own tax rate, for example 0% on an item your state doesn't tax. On a mixed bill, each rate gets its own line. Tips are optional at checkout on the standard checkout: No tip is selected until the customer picks 10%, 15%, 20% or a custom amount, and tips are never taxed. Check your state's rules for what's taxable; Menuthere applies the rates you enter.

What it costs: a worked example

One location takes 1,200 online orders a month at $14 ($16,800). Half are delivery, half pickup.

With your own ordering you carry the delivery: your drivers' pay, or Uber couriers on your own Uber Direct account, where the customer pays Uber's live fee at checkout. Five locations at this volume pay each location's own plan, not a share of sales. App rates are from our DoorDash and Uber Eats pages and the US commission hub.

Costs are still rising. BLS's consumer price index for food away from home was 3.5% higher in September 2026 than a year earlier, and the median wage for restaurant cooks was $17.98 an hour in May 2025. Re-price with the menu price calculator; our guide on how to price menu items walks through it.

Not a fit if

• You need kiosks or a drive-through. Menuthere has no kiosk mode or drive-through flow.
• Your POS must receive web orders. There's no ready-made link to Square, Toast or Clover. Orders arrive in the Menuthere dashboard and print from there.
• You need automatic driver dispatch. Your own drivers are assigned with one tap on the order (Pro); there's no auto-assign or route planning.
• You need the FDA statements added automatically. Add them yourself as described above.

Comparing systems? See the best online ordering systems in the US. Running a deli or a halal concept? See online ordering for delis and halal restaurants.

Set up online ordering for your fast casual restaurant

1. Create your store. Find your restaurant on Google to fill in your name, address, hours and photos.
2. Build the bowl. Required base and protein groups, capped toppings, premium add-ons and sauces.
3. Add calories and allergens. Every item, every format, on every plan.
4. Set lunch slots (Lite). Rolling from now, every 15 minutes, 2 slots, and an average takeaway time.
5. Turn on auto-accept and printing. Keep the dashboard open on the device the printer is attached to.
6. Set tax and tips. Your sales tax rate, any dish with its own rate, and tip percentages.
7. Test, then add locations (Pro). Place a double-protein bowl for 12:15, then add your next branch from the head office.

Build-your-own ordering from your own link, 0% commission.

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