The POS your café actually wants

Cafés have the hardest mix in retail: high transaction volume, low ticket size, complex modifiers, and a customer base that won't wait. Most POS systems either choose simplicity (Square: fast but limited modifiers) or completeness (Toast: full modifiers but slow on a busy Saturday morning). Oliver chooses both, and gives you WooCommerce as the platform underneath.

For roasteries running both retail and wholesale, the WooCommerce foundation matters even more. The bag of beans you sell online and the flat white you sell in-store are the same brand. Loyalty, customer records, and reports should be unified.

Modifiers that don't slow the line

The fast cafés we work with have modifier groups dialled in: size first, milk second, shots third, syrup fourth. The register walks the cashier through the required choices in order, so even a new hire can ring an oat milk double-shot cortado without thinking.

Tip handling without spreadsheets

Tips appear as line items in WooCommerce, in the Hub's end-of-shift report, and split across staff per your tip-pool rules. No manual Sunday-night reconciliation.

Kiosk for the rush

Add one or two iPad kiosks at the door for self-serve ordering. The kiosk takes payment, prints a ticket to the barista station, and frees your two cashiers for the customers who want a human conversation.