Letting guests order ahead for a later pickup time

Guests can pick a pickup time instead of ordering for right now. The order sits out of the kitchen's way until it is nearly due, then joins the board like any other ticket.

Turning it on:
Restaurant -> Settings -> Online Ordering. Choose Counter Pickup, then tick "Let guests order ahead". It is off until you do — accepting an order for next Tuesday is a promise your kitchen has to keep, so nobody switches it on for you.

Two settings:
• Days ahead — how far out a guest may order. The default is 7 and the most you can set is 14. A week is what a kitchen can usually see: the menu, the prices and who is on shift are all knowable.
• Minimum notice — the soonest a guest may ask for. The default is 30 minutes, and it cannot be set below 10.

Two things have to be set first:
Your business hours and your time zone, both on the restaurant's own profile. A pickup time is checked against your hours in your clock, so until both are set every scheduled order is refused rather than promised. The settings panel tells you which one is missing, and shows you how many pickup times guests will actually see once they are both there.

What guests see:
In the cart they choose "As soon as possible" or "Pick a time", then a day and a time. Only times inside your hours are offered, nothing inside your minimum notice, and nothing in the last 15 minutes before you close. If somebody tries to send a time another way, the order is refused — the check happens on our side, not in their browser.

What the kitchen sees:
Scheduled orders sit in a "Scheduled — not started yet" strip above the Kitchen board with their promised time, and no age counter. Nothing there is late. Each ticket moves down into New Tickets on its own shortly before it is due, and only then does its confirm clock start — so a 6:30pm order placed this morning never sets off the unconfirmed-order alert at 10am, and does set it off at 6:05pm if nobody has looked.

If you print tickets, the paper follows the same rule: a scheduled order prints shortly before it is due, with READY AT and the promised day and time across the top, not when the guest placed it.

Dine-in tables cannot be scheduled. Ordering ahead is a pickup arrangement.