TouchBistro Reviews

Pros

Customer support, fast system, no internet needed to run, menu photos and special items to show to customers at table, data to watch your bottom line and a ton more.

Cons

No chip card swipe yet, I would say more program features, but when I asked for more they made more. I am having trouble with this part as the programming can be a bit tech, but they help you and then your good.

Pros

The software is incredibly intuitive and has an extremely high level of functionality within its simple user interface.

Cons

The one issue we have is the inflexible partnership TouchBistro has with Apple. Thousands of dollars of hardware must be purchased to run TouchBistro, and there is almost no flexibility in what you are allowed to by to run it.

Alternatives Considered

Square Point of Sale and Vend

Reasons for Choosing TouchBistro

TouchBistro is a much more powerful option for splitting up tables and creating tabs in our taproom.

Switched From

Vend

Reasons for Switching to TouchBistro

Intuitive nature, ease of use, flexibility of software.

Pros

Good working restaurant system and in the beginning was a well run customer focused company

Cons

Absolutely the WORST customer service department in the history of business. I would not recommend this company if they gave you the equipment for free. To be honest, I have been trying to resolve an issue for 3 months, after numerous calls, emails, and on hold…nothing has been resolved.

Pros

We love TouchBistro to manage room charges and the mass amount of listed items that we sell from our fine dining restaurant to our gift shop.

Cons

One of the biggest challenges we've found with TouchBistro is the technology issues whenever updates are needed. It's often something that can't be fixed in house and that's down time we can't afford to lose.

Pros

My employees transitioned over to TouchBistro really well. It's really easy to use.

Cons

We have "portable" card readers. They're not very "portable". Very glitchy.

Alternatives Considered

Square Point of Sale

Reasons for Choosing TouchBistro

Looking for a better integrated experience.

Reasons for Switching to TouchBistro

My daughter used this software at her summer job. She told me I wouldn't regret it.

Pros

The ease of my staff being able to use it on a daily basis to change or revise orders is much simplier than what we had prior.

Cons

The set-up was a little bit of a struggle with nested modifiers. And, we are getting ready to utilize the online ordering feature and found out that nested modifiers do not pull into the online ordering platform, which is difficult and we are going to have to find a work around.

Pros

Nothing they scam people to bind you in contract if you want to walk out they want you to pay full amount of services. They never provide any equipment and charging you for services.

Cons

Customer service and everything. Even their software not friendly for restaurant.

Pros

Ease of use and functionality of the system is great

Cons

Process to split checks after order is difficult

Alternatives Considered

Clover

Reasons for Switching to TouchBistro

The sales rep was convincing and over promised

Pros

Can't beat the price. user friendly. menu management is a breeze.

Cons

For larger organizations integration with other software needs to be easier. reports could be better. seperating reports by time periods is a problem

Pros

Love the touch bistro pos system, it is by far one of the simplest to setup and easiest to train staffs with. it allow wireless table side ordering, which increase the service time by 20 % since we switch and also cut down on my staffs running back and forth to the customers with credit card payment, which we do sign on screen to speed up the table turning as well. I highly recommend it over other iPad pos system. Feel free to come visit us if you are in NYC. I be glad to show you the system.

Cons

The reservation system isn't connected with OpenTable or does it have a page system for the reservation to txt customers when their tables are ready.

Pros

I thought this would have a better interface than what I had been using. And while it is a little sexier and the touchscreen is handy, but those small benefits our out weighed by the other problems with their lack of competent support and other functionality.

Cons

The biggest problem is that they oversold and under delivered. They told me that all my current printers would work with their requirements. Opps get ready to go live, go live and then find out you have to purchase a $350 printer bc your visa printer isn't "actually compatible" after all. Print all of your visa slips to a boh printer and run to the kitchen to retrieve them for a week while the new printer arrives- so much fun!!! They didn't explain that each device must have it's own Moby Visa device, no problem, that's only about $200+ to get another one of those. Sales person sold me on how they set up your menu, oh not that costs $800, even the promotional video they sent says the same thing.

It is not reliable, there are constant glitches in the system. They roll out updates with out thoroughly testing them. I'm not paying them $120 per month to be QA for their shitty updates. The interface with the Mobi CC machine from Chase it completely intermittent. For at least half the transactions of the day, you have to send the info to the machine twice bc it automatically craps out an error on you. During one painful update, the system stopped communicating our visa terminals altogether. Really fun to ask customer if I can write down their info and run it later, that didn't make us look ghetto or anything.

Alternatives Considered

Toast POS

Reasons for Choosing TouchBistro

Because the Sapphire system was not very user friendly and had limitations that we were constantly trying to work around. It looks like an old dos program from 1999, for the most part.

Reasons for Switching to TouchBistro

They start up cost was supposed to be much cheaper.

Pros

The iPads were ok, and it wasn't too hard to hook up

Cons

Losing orders, connectivity problems, card reader not working, printers printing to different locations randomly, Not very customizable

Alternatives Considered

Toast POS

Reasons for Switching to TouchBistro

Price but after choosing them, We decided to move over to Toast and have been using it for a week and a half with absolutely 0 issues and the customer support is so fast. I get my answers in about 5-10 minutes. It's so easy!

Pros

I purchased, set-up and use the system the most. It was easy to purchase and onboarding was pretty simple.

Cons

They sold me the idea of a great product. We purchased it during COVID and were promised many bells and whistles. First issue - you have some features in the cloud and some features on the Ipad that don't sync. Features - so many features were missing when we signed up with Online Ordering - partial refund, Apple Pay, Google pay, order correction prior to order complete. The list goes on and on. They are definitely light years behing Toast, Square, and even Clover. We have Clover too and I was leaving them to go to Touchbistro. I am glad that we did not leave t

Pros

The first year went well! I actually liked it.
Then according to their own tech support.. the company took on way too many customers than programmers or tech support could keep up with creating a domino effect of pure frustration and no support.

Cons

Many issues.
Tech support is hit or miss sometimes can take up to an hour get someone. Often they can not fix problem. They "escalate it" which means you will never hear back from them. Remote report app for phone rarely works and full of problems. If its a hardware issue no phone tech support. Have to email and wait for email which takes days.
Would not recomend.

Pros

The only area I am happy with is the reporting. Everything else is truly terrible, time consuming, frustrating and a detriment to my ability to focus on my restaurant.

Cons

They may claim to have 24/7 customer service but that has only worked for us for two of our more than 30 issues in the past two years. The vast majority of issues must be sent off to a different department that does not work nights, weekends, or apparently ALL the holidays that exist in the US or Canada. There are issues on average every week, I have made six calls this week alone. On average I probably spend three hours a week dealing with issues, some weeks over 10 hours spent. There also seems to be issues with the hardware. We used to payment devices at our restaurant, so far 10 have failed. When these issues arise that also results in hours on the phone and days of communication to resolve. I

Pros

I wish there is something I would’ve liked

Cons

Nothing. Lack of support and inconvenience

Pros

The low cost is NOT worth the headaches. Talk about "buyers remorse". We are counting the days for our contract to end so we can go to a competent company.

Cons

Where to begin? We literally have pages of complaints about this system.

Pros

TB used to have great customer service. Not anymore.

Cons

TB has been charging me $15/month for over two years for a service I haven’t ever used. I’ve been directed to multiple people who say they will refund my money and stop the charges only for that person to disappear and have to start all over with someone new. They are now trying to charge me $125 a month for a non processing fee while I wait on them to set up the processing…. It’s insane.

Pros

Absolutely nothing. It took almost 4 months to onboard, nothing but problems ever since.

Cons

Constant glitches, several redundant aspects of table service, no signature line on credit card receipts, they made several unauthorized charges to my credit card for services I wasnt even able to use then I had to fight them for refunds, sales man lied to me about what the POS could and couldnt do to get me to sign on then another lengthy battle to get out of the contract. They claimed they cannot give refunds, which they can and did, and they claimed they never cancel contracts, which they can and did. Not IM just stuck in my main locations contract.

Pros

Fairly user friendly, price is ok, and the cloud is nice to have

Cons

It is not a secure POS. Any staff can see information as you need admin code and the staff need it for when there is no manager on shift. You can not lock so they can not delete bills after a bill reopened and then deleted a lot of cash is taken this way and no record once a bill is deleted

Pros

We had a great, helpful sales contact. Unfortunately, once we were turned over to their overall automated system for deployment of the software, we couldn't continue to work with them. At one point, they canceled our account without authorization.

Cons

We signed an agreement that would allow us a refund of more than $2,000 if we didn't want to continue using Touch Bistro. I've been trying to contact them for months for a refund, and have been ignored by their sales contact and their customer service line. We are having to hire a lawyer just to get our refund (even though the contract specifies we could get refunded.)

Pros

Ease of touching, direct sending to kitchen, really a great system, just a few things could make it better and easier

Cons

Some function are not easy to understand...Don't like having to try and figure them out....need a code set up that is not a login code of a manager that is just for discounts....also a tab that is one touch for takeout and delivery displayed at the top with the name would be good...so it one touch check out for them...also bar tabs should print the customers name, so when a bar tab customer decides to order food the chit in kitchen has their name on in and not just "bar Tab"

Pros

Switching menus and putting in specials.

Cons

If you want people to tip your bar staff and servers then do not use this POS. If you manually enter a credit card, like when the swiper is down, there is no tip line or way to enter a tip on these transactions. Also when staff enter tips you cannot modify them once entered so if someone entered a tip wrong you have to void the whole transaction but you will not be able to charge them again unless they are still there with their card.
If customers start tabs you have to manually enter their name, you can not swipe their card and have their name appear. So it slows you down on busy nights.
Switching to Touch Bistro has slowed us down and bar staff have not been able to collect all their tips.
I would not recommend this POS to anyone until these issues are fixed.
Also they will tell you they are working on issues for months and months that never seem to get resolved. Once you sign up you will be ignored.

Pros

That it uses an existing IPad and can be stationary or mobile. Also it is great for tracking sales so that we can keep track of trending up and down of our menu items> It also helps use with ordering and inventory

Cons

That it doesnt include a rounding function for places that have phased out the penny. Sometimes the modifiers are a pain and could be better to add if you could choose all the menu items that could use the same modifier,

Pros

Relatively easy to train new staff.

Cons

On the Administrative side, it is very cumbersome.