Specials board builder
Tell it what needs using up. It suggests specials made from your price book, costs every plate, prices each one at the food cost you aim for, works out how many plates clear the walk-in, and writes the board.
Help and background Back to the tool
How it works
- 1 Sign in with your email, and log your deliveries in your price book.
- 2 List what needs using up, from your book: the cream that's due today, the chicken for tomorrow. Say how much is left if you know.
- 3 Pick how many specials, for which meal, and how the board should read. Add a note for the cook if you like: the fryer's down, nothing with nuts.
- 4 The AI suggests specials made of things in your book. This page costs each plate at your latest prices, prices it at the food cost you aim for, and counts how many plates clear what's left.
- 5 Change the names, the words or the prices, then copy or print the board. A special you add to your dishes is watched by the margin alert from then on.
Free, with a free account, up to 40 asks a day. It reads your price book, and the specials you keep become dishes in the menu margin alert. Signed out, you can try a made-up example: its specials are written ahead of time, and nothing is sent or kept.
Good to know
- What goes to the AI?
- When you ask: the names of the things in your book that have a price and how each is bought (by weight, volume or the piece), your list with how much is left and when it's due, your note, and your business name. They go to our AI provider. Prices never do. The answer comes back to this page and LocoTap doesn't keep or log it; we only count the ask, so the daily limit works.
- Who sets the prices?
- You do, and this page does the sums. The AI picks what to cook and how much of each thing goes on a plate. The cost is that recipe at the latest prices in your book; the suggested price is that cost divided by the food cost you aim for, rounded up to the price ending you pick. Type any price and the food cost follows.
- What about the salt, the herbs, the cheese I don't log?
- Anything a special needs that isn't in your book is listed under "Also" and isn't costed. Put a few cents a plate against it, and the price allows for it. A line the page can't cost, because it isn't in your book or isn't measured the way that thing is bought, is left out, and the card says so.
- "Plates to clear it"?
- If you say how much of something is left, each special shows how many plates use it all, at the amount on its plate. It's a guide for how many to prep or push, not a promise: trim and spills take their share.
- Can I trust what it suggests?
- Treat it like an idea from a cook you just hired: taste it and check it. The AI can get a recipe wrong, and it knows nothing about allergens beyond what you tell it. Check every dish, and what's in it, yourself before it goes on the board. These are suggestions, not food-safety, allergy or accounting advice.
Where it fits in a restaurant
Service Seat the book, run the tickets, and handle every allergy the same way.
Its work comes from
A hand-off only moves when you press it, and never through a link: signed in, the next tool reads your account's book; signed out, it waits in this browser until the next tool picks it up.
Service
More for this part of the day
Reservation book and table plan
Take bookings by party size and see the night as tables against the clock. Ask whether you can fit six at 7:30 and get the nearest table and time that works. Bookings are seated at the table that fits best, walk-ins are quoted an honest wait, and the day sheet prints with every allergy flagged.
Save it: your tables and every booking, in your account
Floor plan and table map
Put in the room and its doors, then drag the tables in, chairs and all. Every seat is counted by section, tables that bump into each other or block a door are flagged, and the way in from the entrance to your accessible table is checked at the width you set. Keep a layout for every event and print the map for the crew.
Save it: your room and its layouts
Kitchen ticket screen
Send tickets from the counter or a server's phone to a screen in the kitchen, with a timer on each that turns amber, then red, against the minutes each dish should take. Split it by station, see what's all day, 86 a dish everywhere at once, and tap a ticket out. The report says which dishes run slow, and when.
Save it: your menu and every ticket for 100 days, in your account
Allergy order protocol
Take an allergy order by table number, read it back, and let the kitchen say whether it can be made safely. Every clean-prep step, the pass and the table get signed with initials and a time while the ticket rides a rail to the guest, and the dishes are checked against your allergen labels. Print flags for the plate and a poster for the kitchen wall.
Save it: the open order, its sign-offs and tonight's orders
Split bill
Split a table's bill evenly, by item or by seat, with each share's own tax and tip and cash rounded to the nearest 5 cents. Tap who had what on the table, take the payments one by one, and print a slip for each person.
Save it: your province, tip and how tables usually split