Billing for your restaurant in Silvassa, Daman and Diu
Tables, the fish priced on the scale and the factory lunch regulars, all on one phone.
From the rainy-day tea to the lunch that is paid on the first
Rainy days sell tea and fried snacks and thin out the thali
On a rainy day the tea and the fried snacks outsell the thali, and the lunch crowd thins. Make the tea and each snack an item, so they have lines of their own. Keep the oil, the gram flour and the tea in stock for the wet weeks. A thali cooked in the usual quantity on such a day is the day's waste.
Closing time after the long tables: the day's total at a glance
The long tables of Friday and Saturday night close the kitchen late. Open the daily report when the last table has gone, and the day's total is there, bill by bill. The cash in the box and the UPI on the phone are checked against it before you lock up, not the next morning from slips.
A regular who skips a week is still on his page
Give each lunch regular a page, with every thali dated. The lines show which weeks he ate and which he skipped, so you can tell a man who changed shift from a man who left. On the first you send the total on WhatsApp.
A Saturday table that orders in rounds, and a fish that is priced on the scale
The group from the Gujarat side takes the table for hours
On a Friday or Saturday night a group that drove down from the Gujarat side takes the table for hours and orders in rounds: a starter, then the fish, then more of the starter, then the sweet. The waiter's slips end up in three pockets. Adding them in the middle of the rush is where the mistakes come from.
The boats are tied up and the fish on the tray has a new rate
In the weeks of the monsoon fishing pause the fish on the tray is no longer the morning's landing, and the rate for each plate is whatever the supplier quoted that morning. The board still shows the old one. If the weight is on one slip and the rate in your head, the bill is a guess, and the table is never happy about a guess.
Two crowds eat from one kitchen: the visitors on Saturday and the workers on weekdays
On weekdays the factory workers fill your hall at lunch, on a thali. On Saturday the visitors come, and they ask for the fish. The same kitchen serves both from one list, and the list suits neither. The weekday thali and the Saturday fish are mixed in one count, so a day that earned and a day that did not look alike.
Where the catch for the Diu plate comes in
A restaurant on the island is close to the boats that supply it.
Tools for a kitchen that serves families, groups and a factory lunch crowd
Bills on your phone
The Saturday group's rounds on one bill, the starter, the fish, the starter again and the sweet each added as the round is ordered, so nothing waits in three pockets.
Daily reports
The thali count and the fish count on their own lines for each day of the week, so a short Tuesday is easy to see.
Orders to suppliers
The morning's order to the fish supplier, with what arrived noted against it, so the kitchen's count matches the fridge.
Questions restaurants in Silvassa, Daman and Diu ask
The sweet after the meal comes from the shop next door and I sell it on my bill. Can it be an item?
Yes. The sweet is an item with its own rate and its own count. Order it from the shop next door, note it when it arrives, and each one sold is a line on the bill.
The table has paid and then orders one more round at closing time. Do I reopen the bill?
No. Make a second bill under the table's name for the last round. The night's report adds both.
A regular left for another job without paying. How do I know how many thalis he owes?
Read his page from the first thali, on the day he joined, to the last, on the day he left. Those lines are the thalis he ate, and the total is what he owes, ready to show him whenever he is found.
A visitor wants to know the day's fish before he drives to the restaurant. Can he see the menu?
Yes. Your own online shop can show the day's dishes and plate rates. Send the page on WhatsApp, and he reads the fish and its rate before he sits down.
Daman's weekend visitors and the pomfret catch
A food magazine feature says Daman has no excise duty and dry Gujarat next door, making it a haven for liquor buyers and a weekend getaway. Weekend tables fill with groups who stay long and order in rounds, and the kitchen runs hardest on Friday night.
Daman and Diu landed 727 tonnes of silver pomfret and 140 tonnes of black pomfret in 2018, according to the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute. A catch of that size passes through the kitchens of the coast, so the rate of this one fish is worth setting with care.