The internet will drop.
Here's everything that keeps working.
Outage Protocol keeps a shop serving when its connection doesn't. Customers keep ordering and are told the truth, every ticket carries its own proof, the counter keeps its queue and keeps taking payments from balances, and every step is written down and sent the moment the line comes back.
Turn it off, and see what each of them is shown.
A customer's phone
Ordering, with a ready time at checkout.
Your counter
Live, and checking in every twenty seconds.
You
Order watch is on. You'll be told when a paid order hasn't been seen.
An outage isn't an error message. It's ten people in line and a router blinking orange.
So we built for it the way a counter actually works through one — the order someone has already paid for, the ticket in a customer's hand, the regular who wants to pay from their balance, the owner who needs to know what happened — and we built it so that nobody has to guess.
Every screen says only what it knows.
01 / A morning
Twelve minutes without a connection.
One morning at a café we made up, from the moment its line drops to the moment it comes back, told by the screens themselves.
Every sentence below is one the product says, word for word, at the point where it says it.
The café's Wi-Fi drops.
Customers · Every page of the storefront
Our order screen is offline for a moment. You can still order. Show your ticket at the counter and we'll make it when you arrive.
The counter · Counter iPad
This screen has been offline since 8:40 a.m. Orders placed online will appear when it reconnects. A phone hotspot is the fastest way back.
Customers · Maya's checkout, on her own data
Made when you arrive. No ready time while the shop is offline.
Her ticket: Sent to the shop
You and your team · The phones of whoever's on shift
Not seen yet · #7F43D6 Maya has waited 2 min and is on no counter screen. Open the queue.
You and your team · Your inbox, once for this outage
Order #7F43D6 at The Neighbourhood Café hasn't been seen
Customers · Maya, at the counter
Show this code at the counter.
The counter · Scan a ticket
A real ticket. Paid.
Put it on the queue
The counter · #7F43D6 · Maya
Handed over Kept on this screen · not sent yet
Customers · Leo, a regular
Show this code at the counter to pay from your balance.
The counter · Take a payment
Taken: $4.25, kept on this screen · not sent yet · B-4F2A9C
The line is back.
Customers · Leo's phone
Paid at the counter $4.25 from your balance.
The counter · Counter iPad
Back online. 2 more orders arrived while this screen was offline.
1 action kept on this screen was sent. A payment taken with no connection is recorded.
You and your team · Admin → Outages
No counter was heard. Counter iPad came back.
3 orders came in; all of them waited for a counter to come back.
Staff were alerted once, and an email went to you and your managers.
With no connection: 1 step on the queue (1 handed over) · 1 payment from balances, $4.25.
02 / Your customers
Your storefront tells customers the truth.
When no counter screen has checked in for a minute while you're open, your storefront says so on every page: your order screen is offline for a moment, they can still order, and you'll make it when they arrive.
At checkout, today's orders lose the ready time nobody could keep and say made when you arrive instead. Orders for another day keep theirs. It all switches back by itself the moment a counter checks in.
The Neighbourhood Café
Our order screen is offline for a moment. You can still order. Show your ticket at the counter and we'll make it when you arrive.
Made when you arrive. No ready time while the shop is offline.
03 / The ticket
Every ticket carries its own proof.
While your outage mode is on, every paid order's ticket carries a code — on the customer's phone, and inside their order email. It's signed, so a counter can check it with no connection at all.
The scanner says what it finds in words staff can act on with a customer in front of them: a real ticket, paid — or not a ticket you issued, and nothing to hand over for it. If the order isn't on that screen's queue, the ticket can put it there.
The counter, offline
A real ticket. Paid.
They were told it would be made when they arrive, so make it now.
They look the same. The counter checks the signature, not the picture.Illustrative. The words are the counter's own.
04 / Paying
A balance pays, with or without a connection.
A customer's phone keeps a payment code for each shop they hold a balance with, ready before the connection goes — on their account page, and on the phone's own no-connection screen when your shop won't load.
With a connection, the counter asks your record first and says Paid only once it has the payment. With none, it takes up to the limit you set, writes the payment down before anything else, and sends it when the line returns — recorded once, however many times it's sent.
If the line drops halfway, the screen says exactly that: no answer. Not paid, not refused. It finds out what became of the payment, and if it went through while nothing was handed over, you're told, so you can give it back.
From Leo's balance
Say the name back before you take it.
Balance when the pass was made: $20.00
Paid: $4.25 from their balance · B-4F2A9C
Paid, kept, or no answer — never a guess between them.Illustrative. The words are the counter's own.
05 / The counter
The counter keeps its place.
A counter that loses its line keeps working. The queue stays on screen, orders still move to preparing, ready and handed over, and a counter restarted with no connection opens to its queue from a copy it keeps of itself.
Every press is kept on the screen with a number of its own and sent in order when the line returns, each recorded exactly once. Then the counter tells you what it missed: back online, and how many orders arrived while it was away.
This screen has been offline since 8:40 a.m. Orders placed online will appear when it reconnects. A phone hotspot is the fastest way back.
- #7F43D6 · MayaHanded overKept on this screen · not sent yet
- #B2C9E1 · SamPreparingMake when they arrive · ordered while offline
- #9A1F44ReadyFrom a ticket · not in this screen's queue yet
06 / Your team
Somebody always knows.
Every counter screen checks in every twenty seconds. A paid order that has waited 90 seconds on no counter screen is said out loud — a notification to whoever's on shift.
If no counter screen is checking in at all, you and your managers get an email: once per outage, about the first order it happens to. From your Admin you can keep taking orders as normal, or pause online ordering until a counter is back.
Thursday 24 September
8:43
Order #7F43D6 at The Neighbourhood Café hasn't been seen
Order #7F43D6 for Maya was placed 2 minutes ago and hasn't appeared on any counter screen at The Neighbourhood Café.
07 / Afterwards
Afterwards, the whole story.
Every outage is written down the moment a counter comes back: when it started, how long it lasted, and which screen came back first.
Beside it, what happened meanwhile — the orders that came in and how many waited, who was told, every payment, handover and sale taken with no connection, and anything a manager should look at. It never guesses why a counter went quiet: a cut line and a tablet put away for lunch look the same from here, so it says what's true.
Thu 24 Sep · 8:40 – 8:52 a.m. · 12 minutes
No counter was heard. Counter iPad came back.
- 3 orders came in; all of them waited for a counter to come back.
- Staff were alerted once, and an email went to you and your managers.
- With no connection: 1 step on the queue (1 handed over) · 1 payment from balances, $4.25.
Also 1 quiet gap, 30 minutes in all, when nothing came in and nothing was done: a screen asleep, or the shop closed.
Thought through, underneath
Your line, or ours.
Switched on part by part.
What it covers, what still needs a connection, and how it's switched on.
Two kinds of outage.
When your shop's line goes, your counter is cut off but your customers' phones aren't: they keep ordering and paying online, and your storefront tells them your counter is offline.
When nobody can reach us, phones can't load your shop either. A phone holding a payment code shows it instead of an error, and your counter keeps serving from what it holds. Either way, everything is sent when the line is back.
What still needs a connection.
A card payment has to reach the bank, so with no connection customers pay from their balance or at your own till.
A phone that has never opened your shop has nothing to show — though if only your line is down, that customer can still order online on their own data. Changing your menu or your settings waits for the line.
Switched on part by part.
Nothing changes until you switch it on, and each part is its own switch in Admin → Checkout: the order watch; telling customers when your counter is offline; payments from balances, with the most a code can carry and whether you give a tab; and orders at your own till.
Switching any of them off stops new things happening and loses nothing: payments already taken are still recorded.
Questions
Cards, balances,
and what you'll see.
Can a card be charged with no connection?
No. A card has to reach the bank. With no connection, a customer can pay from their balance, and anything else is taken at your own till.
What if a customer's balance turns out to be short?
A balance never goes below zero. What a payment came to beyond it is recorded as owed: the customer sees it on their account and can pay it by card or at your counter, and their next order waits until it's settled. You can record it paid, or waive it with a reason.
Could one code be used on two counters at once?
Each counter takes only what the code allows on that screen, and your record limits what one code can carry across every counter. Anything beyond the balance is owed and listed for you, with the counter, the time and who took it.
Where do I see what happened?
In Admin → Checkout → Order watch → Every outage, and what happened in it. Payments taken at the counter, with a way to give one back, and anyone who owes you, are under Customers → Customer Accounts.
Outage Protocol
Keep the business going.
Beyond the internet.
When the line drops, the counter keeps going — and afterwards, you know everything that happened.
Start free — no card needed. Print your counter sign, put it beside the till, and see what happens.