Restaurant internet: two lines, one service

Ten years ago, a venue whose internet failed during service lost its card machine and perhaps its music. Today, it can lose almost everything: the till, the kitchen screens, the booking diary, online orders, the menu guests read on their phones and the card payments at every table. The internet has become as essential to a restaurant as gas and electricity, and for many venues it is far less reliable.

The fix is not complicated. A primary internet line, a backup line from a different provider and a router that switches between them automatically turn a single point of failure into a service that keeps running. Add protection against short power cuts and a sensible separation between the venue's systems and guest wifi, and most of the risk disappears.

This guide covers why restaurant internet needs two lines, what each costs a month, how the switch works, where power cuts fit in, what to expect from a POS offline mode, and how to keep guest wifi off the tills. Every figure in it is an example, and prices vary widely by market.

Most modern venue systems are cloud systems: the software and the data live on servers elsewhere, and the venue's tills, screens and devices reach them over the internet. That brings real benefits, such as access from anywhere, automatic updates and data that survives a broken device, but it also means the internet carries the service.

When the connection drops, the effects spread quickly. Orders may not reach the kitchen screens. Card machines that rely on the connection may stop taking payments. New bookings from the booking page may not reach the diary. Guests may not be able to open the menu on their phones.

Our guide to cloud POS against traditional POS covers the trade-off in detail. Whatever system you use, the conclusion is the same: the connection needs a backup.

Restaurant internet fails for ordinary reasons. The line provider has a fault in the area. Roadworks cut a cable. The router crashes or overheats in a cupboard behind the bar. A power cut takes everything down for a few minutes. Someone unplugs the router to charge a phone.

Most of these failures are short, minutes rather than hours, but a few minutes at eight o'clock on a Saturday is long enough to cause a backlog of orders and payments that takes much longer to clear. And some failures last for hours or days, especially line faults that need an engineer.

A venue cannot prevent most of these, but it can make sure that when one happens, a second connection takes over before anyone notices.

The primary line is the venue's main internet connection, usually a fixed broadband line: fibre where it is available, or another fixed technology where it is not. It should be fast enough for everything the venue uses at once on its busiest night, and from a business provider with a sensible repair commitment.

Speed matters less than reliability for most venues. Tills, kitchen screens and card payments use very little bandwidth; guest wifi, music streaming and security cameras use more. A connection that is moderately fast and very reliable is better than one that is very fast and drops out.

Look at the provider's repair commitment for business lines. A consumer line repaired in several days is a long time for a venue to run on its backup; a business line with a faster repair commitment may cost a little more each month and be worth it.

The backup line is a second internet connection that takes over when the primary line fails. The most important rule is that it must not fail for the same reason as the primary. A second line from the same provider, running through the same cable in the same street, may go down at the same moment.

Many venues use a mobile connection as the backup: a router or a device with a SIM card that connects over the mobile network. It does not depend on the cables in the street, it is quick to set up and it can be inexpensive if it is used only occasionally. Check the mobile signal inside the venue first, because a backup with no signal is no backup.

Others use a second fixed line from a different provider, where one is available, which can offer more capacity for venues that need it.

A mobile backup line is only as good as the signal where the router sits. A router in a basement office, behind a steel door or at the back of a thick-walled building may get a weak signal or none at all, and the backup that worked in the shop fails in the venue.

Check the signal before choosing a mobile provider, using phones on different networks in the spot where the router will live. If the signal is poor, move the router towards a window or an outside wall, or fit an external antenna. Then test the backup again from where it actually sits.

Two lines only help if something switches between them. A router with failover, a feature that moves traffic to the backup line when the primary fails and back again when it recovers, does that automatically. The general idea of failover is used in many industries to keep services running when one part fails.

With automatic failover, staff often do not notice the switch at all, or notice only a brief pause. Without it, someone has to notice the internet has gone, find the backup and connect devices to it by hand, usually in the middle of service.

Choose a router that supports failover, or a separate device that adds it, and test the switch before you rely on it.

The cost of two lines is usually modest compared with the cost of a lost service. Take an example venue paying 50 a month for its primary business line. A mobile backup with a small data allowance, used only when the primary fails, might cost an example 15 to 25 a month, plus the one-off cost of a router or device that supports failover.

A second fixed line from another provider would cost more, perhaps similar to the first, and suits venues that need more capacity in a failure, such as those with heavy online ordering or many devices.

Against that, consider what a two-hour failure on a busy night costs: orders delayed or lost, card payments that cannot be taken, guests waiting and walking out. For most venues, one such evening costs more than a year of backup.

A backup that has never been tested may not work when it is needed. Test it before you rely on it, and regularly afterwards.

The simplest test is to unplug the primary line during a quiet moment and watch what happens. Does the router switch to the backup? How long does it take? Do the tills, kitchen screens and card machines keep working? Does everything switch back when the primary line returns?

Repeat the test every few months, and after any change to the network. Check that the backup's data allowance is enough for a full evening of service, and that its account is paid and active. A backup SIM that was cancelled last year is a surprise nobody needs on a Friday night.

Power cuts take the internet down with everything else, even when the lines themselves are fine, because the router and the network equipment need power. Short power cuts, a few seconds or minutes, are more common than long ones, and they can restart routers, which then take several minutes to reconnect.

A small uninterruptible power supply, a battery unit that keeps equipment running through a short cut, protects the router, the network switch and any equipment that must stay on. It does not need to run the whole venue, only the network, for long enough to ride out a short cut.

For longer power cuts, the internet matters less, because the kitchen and the lights are out too. But tablets and phones with charged batteries, a mobile connection and a paper fallback can keep taking payments and serving whatever can be served.

Some point of sale systems offer a POS offline mode: they keep taking orders when the internet drops, store them on the device and send them when the connection returns. Others need the connection to work at all. Card payments have their own rules, and some card terminals can take certain payments offline while others cannot.

Find out exactly what your systems do. Ask your provider, and test it by disconnecting the network during a quiet moment: can you still take an order, send it to the kitchen, take a card payment? What happens when the connection returns?

Whatever the answer, do not rely on offline mode alone. A backup line keeps everything working; offline mode, where it exists, only softens the blow. Our guide to choosing a POS, twelve questions in order includes the question to ask about outages.

Even with two lines and a battery, there will be rare moments when nothing works. For those, a simple paper fallback keeps service going: order pads, a way to get orders to the kitchen, a printed copy of the menu with prices and a way to take payment.

Keep the fallback ready and known. Order pads and pens at each station, a printed price list, a plan for card payments, whether a card terminal that works on its own mobile connection or a note to take cash where guests can, and a way to enter the paper orders into the system afterwards.

Practise it once, on a quiet night. A team that has used the paper fallback once can switch to it calmly; a team that has never seen it panics.

Card terminals need a connection too, and many venues never check how theirs connect. Some terminals connect through the venue's own network, some through a mobile SIM inside the terminal and some can use either. A terminal that relies on the venue's wifi stops taking cards when the wifi stops, at the moment the queue to pay is longest.

Ask your payment provider how your terminals connect and what they do when the connection drops. Terminals with a built-in mobile connection can carry on through a broadband fault, as long as the mobile signal in the room is good enough. Test it: switch off the venue's network for a few minutes on a quiet afternoon and take a small payment on each terminal.

The internet line is only half the picture. The restaurant network inside the venue, the router, any extra access points and the cables, decides whether every device gets a strong, steady connection.

Check the signal everywhere devices are used: at the tills, in the kitchen, at the host stand, on the terrace, in the far corner of the dining room. Weak spots cause devices to drop off the network, which looks like a device or software problem but is really the network. An extra access point often fixes them.

Use cables where you can for fixed devices, such as the main till and kitchen screens, because a cable is more reliable than wifi. Keep the router and network equipment somewhere cool, ventilated and out of the way, not in a hot cupboard behind the dishwasher.

Guest wifi is a service many guests expect, and it helps the venue too, especially where mobile signal is weak and guests use their phones to read the menu or order. But guest wifi must be separate from the network the venue's own systems use.

Put guests on their own network, with its own name and password, isolated from the tills, card terminals and kitchen screens. A guest's device should never be able to see or reach the devices that take payments. Many routers can create a separate guest network; use it.

Limit how much bandwidth guests can use, so a guest streaming video cannot slow the tills. And print the guest network's details where guests need them, such as on the table card beside the QR code, so they do not have to ask.

The network needs an owner. In a small venue, that is often the owner or a manager; in a group, someone responsible for systems across the sites. The owner does not need to be an expert, but they need to know what the network is, who the providers are and what to do when it fails.

Keep a simple record: the providers and account numbers for each line, the support phone numbers, where the router and network equipment live, the network names and passwords, and the steps to follow in an outage. Keep a copy somewhere that does not depend on the internet, such as a printed sheet in the office.

Review it once a year, and whenever a provider, a line or a piece of equipment changes.

Most network problems in a venue are simple: a router that needs restarting, a cable that has come loose, a device on the wrong network. A short checklist on the office wall lets any manager try the simple fixes before calling for help.

For anything beyond that, know who to call: the line provider for a fault on the line, the router supplier or an IT contractor for the equipment inside, the POS provider for problems with the software. Keep their numbers on the checklist.

And know when to switch to the backup or the paper fallback rather than keep troubleshooting. In the middle of service, keeping guests served matters more than finding the cause; the cause can wait until the rush is over.

An invented brasserie runs its tills, kitchen screens, online bookings and card payments over a single broadband line. On a busy Saturday, roadworks cut the line at seven. For two hours, orders are written on paper and run to the kitchen, card payments fail and guests are asked to pay in cash or come back. Several tables leave without paying the full bill.

The brasserie adds a mobile backup, a router with automatic failover and a small battery unit for the network equipment, for about the cost of one good evening's takings. It moves guest wifi onto its own network, adds an access point on the terrace and writes a one-page outage plan with the providers' numbers.

A few months later, the primary line fails again on a Friday evening. The router switches to the mobile backup within seconds. Most of the team does not notice until the manager mentions it at the end of the night.

servearound runs online: the point of sale, the kitchen display, the host stand, the booking page and the menu guests open on their phones all reach servearound over the internet, so the connection is part of the service, and a backup line and a paper fallback belong in every venue's setup. When a screen loses its connection, it says it cannot reach servearound and keeps trying until the connection returns; digital menu boards keep showing the board they last had through a dropped connection or a restart.

Card payments are taken on your own card terminal, so how they behave in an outage depends on that terminal. Because servearound runs in a browser, a tablet on a mobile connection can stand in for a till whose network has failed. See Order Fulfillment.

If its tills, kitchen screens, bookings or card payments depend on the internet, a backup line is one of the best-value protections it can buy.

One that does not fail for the same reason as the primary: often a mobile connection, or a second fixed line from a different provider.

A router feature that switches traffic to the backup line automatically when the primary fails, and back again when it recovers.

Often a modest monthly sum for a mobile backup, plus a router that supports failover. A second fixed line costs more.

A small battery unit keeps the router and network equipment running through short cuts, which are more common than long ones.

Some systems keep taking orders without the internet and send them later; others do not. Test what yours does, and do not rely on it alone.

Yes. Guests should be on their own network, isolated from the tills and card terminals, with limited bandwidth.

Order pads, a printed menu with prices, a way to get orders to the kitchen, a plan for payments and a way to enter orders afterwards.

Every few months and after any network change, by unplugging the primary line at a quiet time and checking everything keeps working.

Restaurant internet now carries the till, the kitchen screens, bookings, online orders and card payments, so a single line is a single point of failure. Pair the primary line with a backup that fails for different reasons, often a mobile connection, and a router with automatic failover, and test the switch before you rely on it. Protect the router and network equipment against short power cuts with a small battery unit.

Know exactly what your POS and card terminals do offline, keep a practised paper fallback for the rare moment nothing works, and give every device a strong signal on a network of its own, with guest wifi kept separate from the tills. Write a one-page outage plan, give the network an owner, and review it once a year.