Billing for your restaurant or dhaba in Chandigarh
The half plate, the regulars who pay at month end and the morning's flour: written once, in the kitchen's own order.
Tools for a kitchen with a morning walk crowd, a winter menu and a Sunday family
Bills on your phone
A breakfast plate and a lassi billed while the bhatura is still in the pan, and a foil box put on each lunch parcel's bill so the stack is counted.
Daily reports
The winter weeks of saag and makki read next to the summer weeks of lassi, dish by dish, so that the cold-season cooking is planned from what the last one sold.
UPI payments
One QR code held out at the counter on a Sunday evening, when a whole family leaves together and three uncles reach for the scan.
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Why the breakfast queue after the lake walk pays in a hurry, and the lunch parcels leave without a bill
The breakfast queue after the morning walk, ordering standing and paying in a hurry
People coming back from the walk by the lake reach the shop at seven, hungry and short of time. They want a plate of chole bhature, an aloo paratha with curd or a glass of lassi, and they order standing, one hand on the counter. Each of them is late for the office and holds out a large note, and the cashier is looking for change while the bhatura in the pan is browning.
The parcel counter at noon, when the foil boxes run out
Between twelve and one the offices near the sector market ring in their lunches, and the parcels are packed in foil boxes at the gate for a boy on a scooter. The stack of foil boxes is a small thing nobody counts, and in the middle of the rush it is empty. The cook is sent running to the shop next door for more, and the lunch is late.
The Sunday family that arrives together and wants to leave together
On a Sunday evening after the lake a large family fills three tables and orders in one long breath. They eat at the same time and stand up at the same time, and the counter has one cashier and a line of tables waiting to pay. Three of the uncles reach for the bill together, and each wants to pay by his own phone. The kitchen has already cooked for the crowd that did not come, or has run short for the crowd that did.
From a plate ordered standing in the queue to a bill ready while the bhatura is still in the pan
The breakfast plate billed while the bhatura is still in the pan
Pick the plate on the phone as the walker names it, and the bill is made before the bhatura is lifted out. At the end of the morning the number of plates billed can be set next to the number of bhaturas the pan made. The cashier no longer has to guess whether the third round of rotis was ever ordered.
The foil stack that empties between twelve and one
The noon office parcels go out in foil boxes, and the stack is thinnest just when the whole floor sends its order. The cook is sent next door for more foil with a pan on the fire. The day the stack runs out, a parcel waits at the counter and the office sends its boy back.
Cooking for the Sunday crowd that did not come
On a Sunday the kitchen cooks for a family crowd, and some Sundays the crowd does not come. Open the dish counts of the last three Sundays before the pot goes on, and cook for the Sundays that really were, not for the one you feared.
What a Chandigarh dhaba or restaurant owner asks before starting
A walker holds a big note and the change box is low, while the bhatura browns. What do I do?
Show the QR on the counter. He pays the exact bill by phone, and nobody hunts for coins. Make the bill while the bhatura is in the pan, so the number is ready when he reaches the counter.
An office sends the lunch order for its whole floor to be ready at noon. How do I keep the foil boxes for it?
Make the office's bill when the order comes, with the foil boxes as a line on it. The boxes come off the stack that day, so the parcel counter at noon shows only the boxes free for walk-ins.
The cold weeks use a tin of mustard oil much faster. How do I know a tin is ending before the shop opens?
Keep the oil as an item by the litre and enter each tin when it comes in. In the weeks of saag and parathas the low-stock warning shows the last tin the evening before, so the order goes while the market is still open.
Sarson saag is cooked in one big pot and sold by the bowl until it is finished. Can I count the bowls?
Yes. The bowl of saag is an item with its own rate. Every bill takes bowls off the count, and when the count says the pot is nearly empty, the kitchen knows before the customer is told no.
Paneer on the menu, and Sector 15's 'China town'
Chandigarh's Food Safety Administration told hotels, restaurants, dhabas and fast-food outlets to show on their menus or premises the type and quality of paneer they use. A kitchen that keeps each paneer dish as its own item, with its own line on the bill, can show a customer exactly what he ate.
Food booths at Sector 15's Patel Market, nicknamed Chandigarh's 'China town', served around 1,000 customers a day with cheap Chinese dishes, a 2017 Tribune report said. At that pace a booth bills in seconds or loses the next customer in the line.