Brisket and Briyani
A food truck that takes its own orders
A Saturday service that cooks one batch and stops. The system holds the stock count, takes the money, puts the ticket on the kitchen screen, and cancels anything that never gets paid for. Nobody stands at a window writing orders down.
Brisket and Briyani is owned by Archway's founder. We are saying so before you read the rest, because it changes how you should weigh it. It is the one build where we had free rein and no client to convince, which is why it is the most complete thing we have. All of it is checkable: the site is public and linked further down.
Running on this page
Five of the moving parts, live
Not screenshots. Four of these are the real code from the truck, running here on sample data. They run themselves. Touch any of them to take over.
1. What the customer uses
2. What the kitchen sees
3. What the owner counts before service
4. What a regular gets back
5. How stock gets changed, from the truck
What is running
What is behind those three screens
Seven mechanisms. One line each.
One batch, counted down by pickup day
Stock is held per pickup date rather than as one pool, and every paid item takes down the count for the day it was bought for. So somebody buying for next Saturday cannot eat into this Saturday's batch, and when a day is gone the page says so and offers the days that are not.
Payment before the ticket exists
Orders are taken and charged through Square, with the card surcharge and the GST inclusive total on screen before anyone commits. So there is no held order and no unpaid promise to chase on the night, and the receipt comes from Square rather than from us.
A sweep that closes its own loose ends
A job runs every fifteen minutes, cancels orders that were started and never paid for, puts their stock back, and emails the customer to say so. So an abandoned checkout does not sit on the count holding food nobody is coming for.
A kitchen screen the crew can use mid service
Tickets land on a display with per person PIN sign in, hashed PINs, a lockout after repeated failures, and a local queue that keeps working when the connection drops and catches up when it returns. So a dropout in the middle of a rush does not stop tickets being marked off, and the screen records who did it.
Stock managed by text message
The crew messages a WhatsApp number in plain language. The message is read, turned into a stock change and applied, and any large change waits for a human to reply YES. So stock gets corrected from the truck one handed, and a typo cannot wipe the count.
A guard on the order itself
Checkout stops anyone whose cart is only add on meats and tells them those are meant to top up a box rather than stand alone, before taking the money. So the kitchen does not receive an order it cannot plate and nobody gets refunded over a misunderstanding.
A way to test it on the real thing
A staff code at checkout charges one cent and tags the order TEST in Square. So the whole flow including the money can be exercised on the live system without touching the day's takings.
What this makes possible
Two sides of the same build
For the customer
- Order from home, on a phone or a laptop, instead of only while the truck is open.
- Pick a Saturday and a pickup time that suits, rather than turning up and hoping.
- See what is left for that day before paying, so nobody drives over for food that has gone.
- Pay up front, so the order is locked and the receipt comes straight from Square.
- Walk up, give a name, collect. No ordering at the window.
- Get told before paying if the cart will not make a meal, rather than finding out at pickup.
For the business
- Set the batch for a date in one touch, or correct stock in plain English from the truck.
- A large stock change waits for a YES before it applies, so a typo cannot wipe the count.
- Stock counts itself down as orders are paid for, per pickup day, with no tally by hand.
- Unpaid orders cancel themselves every fifteen minutes and the food goes back on sale.
- Tickets arrive on the kitchen screen already paid for.
- The screen keeps working when the signal drops and catches up when it returns.
- Know what to cook before the day starts, because the orders are already in.
- Close online ordering between service periods, and the site tells customers plainly rather than taking orders it cannot fill.
Nobody stands at the window taking orders. At $30 an hour, four hours a week, fifty weeks, that is $6,000 a year of labour the system absorbed. This is our own business, so the arithmetic is ours to publish.
Not finished
A loyalty app, in build
A loyalty ledger already runs inside the ordering system, with guards that stop the same purchase being credited twice. The phone app that puts it in the customer's hand is being built now and has not been released. Nothing on this page is a product you can download.
See it yourself
The site is public
Online ordering is closed at the moment, between service periods. The site says so on the page rather than taking orders it cannot fill. When it is open, the flow is the one described above.
brisketandbriyani.com.auWorth saying plainly
No one client has done the whole journey yet
Every piece of it is live somewhere, and we can show you each one.
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