What changes at the second branch?
Four things specifically: time, place, people and numbers. Time, because each branch has its own hours and holidays; place, because each branch has its own address and delivery zones; people, because each branch has its own cashier, kitchen and manager; and numbers, because you need to know how each branch performs on its own and then how the whole chain does.
What must not change is the menu itself: items, modifiers, photos and descriptions. A restaurant that enters its menu twice ends up with two different menus within a month, because edits get forgotten in one of the two.
One menu, exceptions per branch
The right rule is: everything is visible in every branch until you hide it, and everything carries its base price until you change it. You enter the menu once, then add for a specific branch only what differs: a higher price in the mall branch, an item unavailable in a branch without an oven, or an item sold out today from that branch's own POS without disappearing from the others.
This way, editing a description, a photo or the modifiers stays in one place, while local differences remain stored per branch.
- A special price for an item in one branch.
- Hiding an item or a whole category in a branch that does not serve it.
- Marking an item sold out from the branch POS, coming back automatically the next day or when the flag is cleared.
Hours and delivery zones per branch
Opening hours and holidays must belong to the branch, not the restaurant. The branch open until midnight should not close because the quiet-neighbourhood branch closed at ten, and the reverse is true as well. The same applies to a maintenance or renovation holiday that concerns a single branch.
Delivery zones and fees are drawn around each branch, because a district one kilometre from one branch may be ten from the other. When the guest picks their branch they see only that branch's fees, and the order reaches its kitchen and no other.
Each branch team sees its branch only
A branch manager needs their branch's orders, reservations and reports, not the other branch's numbers, the restaurant settings or billing. So every account is limited to the branches it serves: the staff member in the dashboard, the cashier on the branch device, the kitchen screen in the branch kitchen, and the call-centre agent on the branches they take orders for.
Only the owner sees everything, and can give a central staff member more than one branch when their role calls for it, such as an accountant or an operations supervisor.
Branch reports, then chain reports
The order matters: read each branch report first, because the combined total hides a branch that is slipping behind one that is growing. Then compare branches at the level of item, shift and peak hours, not the total alone; the difference may sit in a single item that sells in one branch and is neglected in another.
Reports should be computed in the restaurant's time zone and cut by shift, so that the evening-shift report in one branch means the same thing in the other.
Common mistakes when expanding
The most frequent mistake is running the new branch on a separate system or account "for now", then staying on it because merging later is expensive. The second is giving every staff member owner rights to save setup time, which removes traceability and widens the room for error. The third is copying delivery zones from the old branch to the new one without redrawing them around its actual location.
- Open the new branch inside the same account from day one.
- Start with narrow permissions and widen them when needed, never the reverse.
- Draw delivery zones and hours per branch, even if they look alike at first.
A checklist before opening the branch
Before opening day, make sure the branch is added with its address and phone, its hours and delivery zones are set, the items it does not serve are hidden there, and its POS, kitchen screen and staff are tied to it alone. Then place a test order from the website and from the POS and follow it through to the report. If the order shows up in the right place, with the right number and in the right branch report, the branch is ready.
