Billing for your restaurant and eating house in Goa
Today's fish at today's rate, a parcel for the office and a regular's monthly page.
Tools for a kitchen that cooks to the morning's fish
Bills on your phone
Pao and bhaji by the piece in the early hour and the fish thali by the plate at noon, on the same day's list with separate lines.
UPI payments
A QR on a card at each shack table. A round of friends puts the evening's fish on one bill, and one phone pays it while the others carry on talking.
Daily reports
Plates of fish thali and plain parcels read apart at closing, so the owner knows what the board's rate did that day.
Online orders
A table of friends sends its round from your shop's page while still on the beach lane, and the plates are on the fire when they sit.
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From a fish rate on a board to the fishing-ban weeks on one bill, a table on the sand and a bag with its own bill
The fishing-ban weeks, when egg curry rice stands where the fish curry rice stood
While the boats are kept in for the fishing ban, the fish curry rice is set aside and the egg curry rice or the vegetable thali carries the day. Each is an item with its own rate, and the bill takes whichever the table asked for. The report shows how many plates of the new one went in the weeks the fish was away, and you learn what your regulars eat when the boats are out.
A table on the sand that orders in rounds, and one page when they stand up
At the shack a table orders a round of starters, then the fish, then a sweet, and sits an hour between them. Bill each round as it comes, all on a page in the group's name, and when they stand up the page already holds the whole evening. It goes to the one phone that is paying, and the shack is not left adding up three separate pads in the dark.
Four office parcels at one o'clock and two people who each say the bag is hers
Four offices phone in for one o'clock, and the bags stand in a row at the door. Two women come and each says the bag with a name on it is hers. The bill for each parcel was made when the call was taken, with the caller's name and number, and it is already on her phone, so she shows it and the bag goes to the right hand.
Why a Goa eating house quotes yesterday's fish rate, loses the market Friday's slates and hands a parcel to the wrong clerk
A plate whose price is decided by the morning's fish
The fish curry rice on the board is cooked from whatever the fish seller brought that morning. A day of a better fish means a dearer plate, and a day of a cheaper one means a lower rate. The owner changes the chalk on the board, but the waiter who took the first order at ten o'clock still quotes the old rate to a table at one, and the bill and the board disagree. A customer who ordered the dearer plate at ten expects the rate she read on the board at ten, and she is right to.
Mapusa's market Friday, when the sellers eat early and are back at their stalls before the plate is cool
On market Friday the sellers from the villages eat early and fast, often standing, and are back at their stalls before the plate is cool. The kitchen cooks the same few plates in a hurry, one after another. The cashier takes the money with one hand and plates with the other, and by noon the pad has Friday's plates in no order.
Parcels phoned in for one o'clock, with a name written on the bag
A clerk phones from an office to ask for four parcels at one o'clock. The owner writes a name on a slip, the cook packs the bags, and a name is written on each in marker. At one o'clock three people arrive at the same time, two of them claiming the same bag, and the slip with the amount has gone under a pile of others. The clerk who gets the wrong bag eats a fish she did not order, and the one who is left without lunch has an hour to be annoyed.
What a Goa restaurant owner asks before starting
The board at ten shows one rate and by one o'clock the fish is dearer. What does the ten o'clock guest pay?
He pays the rate on the bill made when he ordered. The next bills take the new rate. Repaint the board, or tell the table, so the waiter does not quote the ten o'clock price at one.
A family comes with a small child who eats from the fish thali. Can the child have a smaller plate?
Yes. Make the child's plate its own item, with the boneless piece of fish and a smaller portion of rice. The day's list counts it apart from the full thali.
The fish thali has run out and the table still wants a thali. Can the egg curry thali be ready as its own item?
Yes. Keep the egg curry thali as its own item with its own rate. When the fish thali is out the waiter offers it, and the bill shows the egg curry plates apart from the fish ones.
The fishing ban and the plate of fish
Goa's annual fishing ban starts in the first week of June, so local fresh fish dwindles and Goa relies on imports from Karwar in Karnataka and Malvan in Maharashtra.
Fish is integral to Goan cuisine, with nearly 80% of the population eating it daily, so a rise in fish prices after the ban is a concern. When the price of the fish moves, the rate of the plate moves with it, and each bill keeps the rate of its own day.